My Grandfather's Ghost
by Alex Schira
Summary: A Fenton who doesn't believe in ghosts. Now there's an oxymoron. Young Alan Fenton is about to get a handson lesson about his family history, and about himself. Early chapters are being extremely rewritten up to around chapter 10, as of November 2009.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Danny Phantom or any related characters.

I gently thumped my right ring finger against the table I'd been haunting for a good hour and a half. The plates had been cleaned off and stacked in the center before I even sat down. A blanket of crumbs was staining the paper tablecloth, making a faint web pattern around the hollowed out green candle in the wilting centerpiece. I'd been staring down at the thing for so long, the stains looked like six different animals depending on how you tilted your head. Trust me on this, I'd been there the entire evening.

My eyes twitched out of their glazed state as a pale hand appeared next to the elbow I'd been resting on the edge of the table. A carefully measured, purposely feminine voiced cheerfully chimed into my ear. I was running a few months late on a haircut appointment. I'm surprised I could hear her through the hair packed above my ears.

"…_Alan…? _Some one wants to talk to you."

I idly snatched a spoon off a lopsided plate, flipping the concave around to look at the flipped reflection of my mother's brown and white features peeking from over my shoulder my shoulder. I watched her forceful brunette brows spasm as I muttered softly.

"Not in the mood…"

I felt her nails dig into the back of my arm, jerking the sleeve of my jacket as if she could actually lift me out of my chair. Nonetheless, I stiffly stretched out from under the table and gently shifted her off of me with one arm. I then cracked my neck against my right shoulder before looking down at her with a tensed eyebrow. I had to loosen my neck beforehand because of the height difference. My mom's about five one in high heels. And I'm…not exactly five one in heels.

Before I could even step off my chair she'd already grabbed the front of my jacket and began struggling to hide the zipper pull as she complained under her breath.

"I say _formal, _and you wear a leather jacket and a tee shirt…?"

Batting her off with one elbow, I simply commented.

"You just told me to wear white, and told me to wear this jacket."

…Maybe she was ticked about what I did to the extremely flamboyant cowboy jacket she had left out for me when I first saw it…

Before my comeback could even sink in my mother quickly glanced down at her completely white pants-suit to make sure she hadn't broken her own commandment. She then swung her dark eyes back up to where I towered over her and jammed a manicured thumb into the light grew shirt partially hidden inside my authentic leather but completely bleached-ivory jacket. If you looked closely, you could just make out a line going down the back of each arm where I'd sliced off the fringed tassels with a pocket knife back in the hotel room. I would have gone all the way and just blacked out the jacket, but I didn't have enough shoe polish or leftover black hair dye from my father's dresser.

My mother dragged her thumb nail over the coarse cotton the shirt had been made of for a few years now, sighing at its non-whiteness as she grabbed one of my sleeves and led me away from the farthest-places table of the currently alcohol-smelling hotel banquet hall of the week.

"_Honestly!_ The _girls_ never complained…"

…Of course they never complained. They can't. You'd sooner see a horse trotting into a glue factory before you'd see one of the 'Fenton Sisters' saying anything less than positive about their being limited-audience celebrities. As my mother pulled…well, led me by the sleeve towards the open bar, I scanned the formally covered horizon of heads and torsos, eventually seeing a flash of red and green flaring out of the black and white.

As my pupils adjusted to the dim glow of the candles melting on each empty table, I could distinctly recognize the exact pose that my younger sister, Sherri, was making for a tuxedoed photographer kneeling down in front of her. She was obviously my mother's daughter. A very slightly feminine but extremely travel-sized figure, barely five foot who looked like she couldn't take a sudden gust of wind. Like my mother, she'd pulled her forcefully dyed brunette locks back against her sharp-featured head and tied it all off with a simple ponytail which she draped over one shoulder as she angled herself to the side and raised a finger/thumb comprised fire-arm parallel to her face to look like an old movie poster. Just imagine a leather body-suit instead of a flowing emerald evening gown that cost more than my entire wardrobe back home.

And behind her, in a perfect if not discolored mirror image, was a girl completely identical in every visible way except for the red dress and the fact she was facing the opposite direction in the very same pose. As the photographer's flash beeped and temporarily blinded the immediate population, my sister and her double held the pose like a statue and its reflection in a color-blind pond.

And then, the tuxedo-clad paparazzi waddled off to find another shot as the red-clothed girl fell right out of her firing pose into a slow, ear-shattering face-vault. Almost as suddenly, the remaining twin just shook her head and helped the other up as her crimson counterpart just giggled and pointed down at how one of her heels had fallen off.

Sherri, in the green, and Kerri pulling up the rear of the brain trust. Identical twins. And since they're _Fentons_, they were bred and raised to…don't mark me off as drunk, I'm actually allergic to the stuff…to fight ghosts.

I'm not kidding. I wish I was, but some prayers just don't make it past customer service.

I'm not just another estranged eldest son loitering around his family's table at a business function or a wedding reception. According to the digital flier outside the main doors of this small auditorium, this was a corporate fund raiser slash gala reserved for those of the paranormal community. This is comprised of but not limited to those who believe in the active afterlife, and provide funding for such research and beliefs.

A bunch of rich morons who just happen to believe in ghosts, getting together to pose for hideously formal pictures and to test out the dexterity and sanity of the red-vested bartenders. There, that's what it means in English. At least that's what it melted into after the first ten minutes. These snobs actually paid to hear from the latest branch of a family that's been…either researching or exterminating ghosts, for generations. I used to ask what we actually did quite often, after so many trips to my room I just accepted that there was no real answer.

Yeah, there's a ghost-fighting family out there. Back in the day, supposedly around the turn of the century, our close ancestors saved a town from 'ghost attacks' thirty times over. The original Fentons also made a modest fortune in military technology and some sociological studies on active teamwork within the American family. But they were obsessed with ghosts. That tends to stick to the top of the page better than the resume of patents and company investments. Weird stuff sells, ask Hollywood.

And the trend continued down the gene pool. And some commercial consultants believe they're more marketable than ever before. You see, before Helena 'Helen' Fenton spent forty hours delivering the twins, she'd already planned out their supernatural education program. Then the drugs wore off. She gave up on the flying circus idea and went back to matching jumpsuits and helmets.

Seventeen years later, and you have a very photogenic set of teenage girls that look great in ghost-fighting body armor and stylized stealth helmets. Combine this with my mother's reputation as a ballistic genius, and my father, James 'Jim' Fenton, being the indirect heir to Jack Fenton himself and you have a four person line up that pays for itself in media coverage and corporate sponsorships.

Who, for the record, have never encountered nor fought a single ghost since before the twins were born.

…So, who am _I?_ No one worth mentioning. Just call me Alan. Last name's 'Fenton'. Odds are, you've never heard of me. Well, neither did a single person in that entire hotel. When my father got his key from the desk, the clerk had asked him to sign a magazine cover detailing our current base of operations. Then he asked if he should call security on the guy standing too close to our latest rental van. I mean… loitering around wearing sunglasses _at night_? That's enough to get a nightstick beating from the fashion police.

I liked to keep a low profile. That's all anyone needed to know. It's not easy. Like most male Fentons, I'm of slightly large frame. According to the last scale I stepped up onto I'm about six three even, two hundred sixteen pounds. You heard me. Pounds. The metric system can go gram itself with a meter stick, I don't care what all the other countries and fifty three states are using.

Before you picture a stocky linebacker, calculate this. Seven percent body-fat. Sixteen inch arms on a cold day. And if I didn't spend so much time working on flexibility, I'd probably have problems fitting through standard door frames without turning sideways.

That, is not Fenton genetics. That's just hard work and a good diet. And a few second-hand text books about human anatomy and muscle growth, the lost art of the twentieth century.

I'm not bragging about this. Middle aged men walk up to me in public and start talking about their high school football careers. If I time it so it's during the game-winning interception, they don't even notice when I sidle away with my eye on the nearest sharp or blunt object.

Enough about my body and how many shirts I've gone through in the last few years. Even with all the gym time and protein shakes, I can't escape the Fenton look. Mainly the pale-ish skin that always made me wonder if Fenton is short for something Irish. It doesn't tan. At all. But I also can't burn, don't let me mother's brown hair dye and forced lack of pigment fool you. She's half-Hispanic, and my sisters and I are one quarter Cuban. But I think the twins just got an eighth each, they were raised knowing nothing of their heritage and therefore act…well, white. That's the only way I could possibly word that without going off in Spanish like my other relatives do.

And now, my halfway biracial, body-built frame was being dragged along by a ninety pound woman in a white pants-suit whose high heels were ready to snap just like Kerri's just had. The Fenton women seem to have an issue with their stature. Between the shoe-lifts and only posing with short male models in nerdy center-folds, they're dead set on passing as 5'6. I mean, no one's going to notice six missing inches, right?

As I weaved through abandoned chairs and crept around stationary trophy wives as a loud burst of laughter sounded from the direction we were headed, and with my vertical advantage I could see right over my mother to the bar-crowding group it came from. A loose circle of older men in un-tucked suits, all heads turned up at the tallest and most talkative member of the conversation. And the almighty tallest happened to bear a striking resemblance to what I'd look like in my late forties after a lifetime of moderate exercise and not as moderate diet. I'd joke about his gray hairs, but it's just the Fenton way to gray early and have a spare tire around your waist.  
…I'm not sure where I fit into that, exactly. The height, the muscle and the lack of real intelligence I partially understood and accepted. But the six-pack and the visible muscles where muscles usually don't loiter around?

Let's just say…I'm a bit more 'physical' than the rest of the family. The ghost hunting majority, of the family. Namely everyone but me.

By the time my mother 'pulled' me over against the edge of the dark marbled bar, my father had finished his rehearsed comedy routine about the wine listing and walked off to talk to a photographer who was cleaning his lens behind a potted plant. As wrong as that sounds. This shot down one clue why she'd dragged me over, usually I just have to stand next to Jim and nod as he starts talking about the Fenton lineage, I just stand there until he nudges me to do a bicep flex then I'm free to wander away to beat down a woolly mammoth with my buddies. Instead, she pulled sharply on one of my ivory-hide sleeves to get my attention and flicked that thumb of hers toward an elderly man who was sitting on a stool on the far corner. She hissed, trying to be quiet about it as she screamed it up at me.

"Said he recognized you….Don't ask."

She turned to walk over to that same photographer her husband spotted and stalked off towards, but I quickly pulled her right back by the collar with one finger and asked, in a mocking hiss of a whisper.

"…From _where_?"

She shrugged off my hooked index finger and just spat back in a hurry before clicking off in those doomed heels.

"Who cares, just keep him busy!"

I watched her slowly clack away with a tensed eyebrow before just shaking it off like a patch of dandruff and looking over at my secret admirer at the end of the bar.

Can't say he was one to stand out in a crowd. Drowning in a partially tucked three piece suit, expensive hair piece sitting on his head like a trained dog, and his slightly reddened head was bobbing over a small but empty glass that I noticed was covered in fingerprints. Rich drunks don't go through bottles of the stuff. They get the same little glass refilled repeatedly to the equivalent of what they'd drink if they were at a keg party, it's just classier to use a tiny glass. Like most of the other suits in the room, he was just wrinkled enough to sink into that 'old' category where you can't spit out a double digit and hope to land it.

Old drunk at the bar wants to talk to me on a whim. Sounds fun.

I made sure my parents weren't in sight before spinning on one worn heel and looking for a path back to the table I'd been making friends with all night. Apparently my heel-spin caught too much lag on the carpet, because immediately a hoarse croak cut through the crowd's humming, freezing me in my first step.

"HEY! PHANTOM!"

…Oh…crap…he actually _knew _me…?

Slowly, ever so slowly, I turned back to look at him with a plastered smile I practically pulled out of my wallet and stuck onto my face in the men's room. The elderly booze-hound was now squinting over with two marble-like eyes, a slanted smile showing off his latest dentures as he waved me over with a limp hand. A minute of purposely lead-footed walking later, I took a seat next to him as he let one of his index fingers bob like a plastic bird at me, slowly forming a single word.

"…You…"

How…specific…As I settled onto the stool and lowered it so I didn't have to bend my neck as much, he took the reins of the already sluggish conversation and clanked his glass against the bar as he suddenly remembered.

"…you _BOXED!"_

I kept the pre-packaged smile going. I hoped it wouldn't snap off and fly into some one's drink. I raised a loose palm and opened my mouth to try and change the subject to the weather or something about night-vision contact lenses being cheaper now, but as the sullen bartender gave him a twelfth refill he raised his wagging finger again and finished.

"…Yeah, I know you. Saw ya' slippin' those hooks like they was lingerie. Damn good! When wuz' it…October?"

At that particular moment, it was February. A chilly seventy degrees, at that. Thanks a lot, twentieth century pollution. Slowly, my smile peeled off and my mouth slipped back into the flat-line position as my eyes swung over to the glass shelves behind the bar as I struggled to keep the boredom out of them. He knew who I was. So much for saying I just _look_ like a Fenton, it's a normal mistake. That usually works better than 'My mistress just went into labor, gotta' go!'. He kept wagging that same finger as he sipped his newly filled glass and swallowed.

"…Yeah…you were _good…_you moved good…damn fast for a slugger…"

As I stared off behind the bar without, not really acknowledging the conversation, I dryly whispered my first word of the subject and let my eyes tighten around a bottle of something clear on the top shelf. If I'd been two years older, and I would have bought it and hit myself over the head with it.

"_Swarmer."_

Instantly, something wet hit my ear as he demanded with sudden impatience.

"What was that?"

I rasped, not even facing him.

"…I'm…I was a _swarmer, _Sir. You called me a…"

"Don't _correct_ me, you punch-drunk _loser_!"

My already sore neck nearly snapped when I spun around to face him. He hadn't moved. Still bobbing over his now empty glass, his finger still shaking at me as he went on in the same pace and tone. Now that I think back, he was probably implying these feelings when he called me over. Or maybe he just couldn't move his face that much .He slurred.

"...Forty…four...wins, straight! Hey, the guys were real cans, but you still whomped 'em!"

I liked it better how _Gloves Monthly _said it…You know…tying one of the greatest winning streaks in boxing history, despite fighting in a sport that's still getting back on its feet talent-wise…Where they took down that stupid 'The next heavyweight champ' rumor and just said I was decent. I liked that.

I didn't like this guy.

"…And you just quit. Quit. It's stupid, needle-jacking pugs like you tha…Hey, I'm talkin' to you!"

I'd gotten up. Then stared down at him with sharpened eyes that had cut down a few dozen heavyweights in that winning streak he'd just ranted about. And this old coot just kept bobbing over his glass, not even caring as his punching bag barely resisted the urge to throw him right over the overworked bartender into those shelves.

And I just walked away. Didn't even look back as he yelled in that same rank monotone.

"…Yeah, you _better_ run! Worst fighter I ever _paid_ to see…_Get lost_!"

…Sorry to break the mood…but how did this guy end up in a _paranormal investigation _gala? Was he left over from the party from this afternoon, and seeing his favorite retired heavyweight just woke him up enough to cuss me out? I just have to bring this up. Sure, it was a mild experience and those words didn't exactly roll off like they should have, but I just have to wonder how this little man entered the picture to begin with.

Sad part is, that wasn't the first old guy at s bar.

I more or less threw away my gloves last month. New Years Day. Eight forty seven in the morning. This particular outing was in late February. And as you can see, the ring announcers still talk about me as if I'd just quit ten minutes before the match they're covering. The obsessed jerks can't just let me move on, just ask the armchair boxing expert with the bobbing finger and the trophy wife hitting on the bartender about six feet away from where we'd exchanged words.

Oh yeah. I should have brought this up earlier, but I figured it was just trivia.

I was a boxer.

Let's leave it at that.

About Two Minutes Later

Fire exits. Designed to provide a safe evacuation route in case of an emergency. But that night, a carefully hidden and poorly ventilated stairway behind the decorative fountain with no pennies in it provided an emergency evacuation route for one out-of-place, overgrown adolescent in terribly tasteless white pants, equally white shoes, a pathetic parody of a biker jacket and a slightly form-fitting gray tee shirt that was just wasn't stiff enough to go in the hotel room hamper.

…Don't worry, I hated it too. See? We're all sane here. I'm not 'special', I'm just stupid. Did I mention I used to get hit in the head for a career? I think I did.

So I left the party. Sue me. It' not like this is a sudden rebellion against corny-looking family outfits and allowing my sisters to make fools of each other like they do. Ever since I got the nerve to tell my dad I…well, imagine twelve years of brutal daily training and psychological conditioning. Every day, six AM, rolled out of my unkept bed with the latest ghost-gun tucked into the waistband of my shorts and a sinking feeling in my stomach. Name a Fenton gadget. I probably have the blueprints and merchandising angle stashed in my subconscious from back when. Burned into my memory.

And just like that, déjà vu, I quit. I told my father that it was all…a bit much? I mean…the only ghost I've ever seen turned out to be a large plastic bag with a small dog trapped inside it. And my mom pumped it full of holes before I could point out the furry paws and barking. Don't worry. The poor guy's fur grew back after a while.

Twelve years of supernatural boot camp. But no ghosts. We might as well have been training to fight the evil communists and their weapons of mass destruction disguised as a dinky little satellite like they did in the 1900s. The Fenton-trade used to be a hobby. Something to do on weekends, and an outlet for jumpsuit enthusiasts to go around in public without shame. Just some scientists with secondary degrees in the supernatural.

Now it's a plain out joke. And when I told Jim Fenton, my father, that I didn't get the punch-line…He didn't laugh.

Just like that, they dropped me from the line-up. And just focused on my now famous sisters, the 'Fantastic Fen-twins'. I'm not being sadistic. They actually put that on the last magazine cover.

And somehow, I started fighting. On a little square stage with ropes on the sides and people in the stands yelling for me to either hit harder or for the other guy to hit _me_ harder. And the announcers and sportswriters that love this kind of thing heard about all these other people with my last name, and eventually some one rhymed 'Fenton' with 'Phantom'. Actually, some old leatherhead at the gym came up with it. The media just milked the heck out of it, just like every other nickname that the geniuses in the gym came up with.

Well, it wasn't _that _idiot's voice that drifted past my ear on a passing breeze.

…_Every fighter…needs a name to hide behind when things hit the fan. One that looks better as a tattoo._

…And I was…'The Phantom'. Even when I dropped the family business…Jack Fenton still guaranteed that when people think of Fentons, they think of massive collateral damage and screaming bystanders. Or ghosts, either or.

And it all ended up in the last place to look for some one at a simmering party. The hotel parking lot. Welcome to every Fenton appearance I've been to for the last seven years. Hey, that guy's got fuzzy dice on his mirror. Orange ones.

Highlight of my evening.

A slow minute later, I was shuffling around between the cold-blue washes of the lamp posts and trying to rattle off the year of each square-framed vehicle I stumbled past. Whenever my eyes passed by a bright area on the concrete, I could see a thin layer of moisture ingrained in the cracks from a recently melted blanket of snow. We'd shown up in the middle of a freak winter heat wave up west. Speaking of heat, I swear to who ever runs this planet that the white jacket I'd compromised into wearing was tailored in HELL. By the time I'd paced around the first row of mostly retro-designed and salt-stained cars, I'd already shucked off that pearl-colored atrocity and hung it over one shoulder like an out of work comedian.

Which…somewhat describes me, really. I'm unemployed. Living with my parents. Single. And tell such terrible jokes to the point where I just stand there and grunt most of the time. Isn't that essentially comedy since they started banning curse words and all references to the human body?

Nineteen years and three months of mixed experience, and it all just lead up the tops of my bleached white shoes as I dragged them along the cracking asphalt to try and make the heels stop feeling so rubbery. Back at the party, my sisters had probably found another photographer and Kerri would just fall down again. My mother would scan the room for me like she was surveying for a tree before just shaking her head and going back to my father's arm for the rest of the evening. I stayed for the table portrait, that's all I ever have to do anymore.

Sweet routine. Just one hotel parking lot after another.

Then, a car horn exploded a few feet behind me. Insert screamed cuss word and my pants being ruined.

Quickly, I vaulted sideways towards the nearest row of cars, thinking some one was tearing down the lot and I had been in the way. I managed to get a good angle, sliding to a stop a good six feet away with my knees bent and one arm bent down to steady myself as I twisted my torso around to see what should have hit me.

I expected to just see the tail end of some fancy foreign toy honking off at some other pedestrian on the other side of the lot. Instead, there was what resembled a streamlined but still featureless white van sitting in the lane a few yards from where I'd been walking. Parked. Didn't even have the lights on.

Instantly I popped right back out of my landing stance and jogged up to the driver's side window. It was tinted, and in the LED-glow of the nearby lamp I could just make out a pair of blue specks sticking out of a somewhat warped reflection of myself. I knocked on the door with the heel of my fist, once again jumping to a conclusion. This time, it was a troubled motorist signaling a guy wandering around aimlessly outside a hotel.

Either some one is delivering a set of twins and they're out of gas, or they think I'm a working lad and want to ask my rates on back seat deals.

Either way, the adrenaline dump was starting to wake me up. Finally speaking above a tired sigh, I called loud enough to get through the glass.

"You okay? If you need a phone, you could…"

I groped around the sides of my legs, discreetly feeling for the pocket of those fitted white pants to grab my cell phone. I quickly stopped as the mirrored black window slid down into the white door frame with a futuristic hum and the face hanging an inch behind it smirked at me from behind a few square inches of purple make up and black hair dye. As the sight of her instantly distinctly purple and coyly half-open eyes hit me like a pillow to the face, I pulled my hand back up, holding my phone, and simply finished.

"…Call the Halloween Outlet to come pick you up, you evil witch!"

Those violet eyes practically glowed in the light of the van's dashboard as she let out a short and fitting cackle before dropping one black-clothed elbow out of the window and leaning out to get a closer look at me. Her hair, black, of course, was cut in some old and overdone style with the bangs falling over one eye to appear mysterious. Or cliché, same thing. A thick, slippery voice.

"…Sorry, but the way you _pounced…_Fenton boys can only move their ass when something jumps at _their_ ass!"

My widened, dumbstruck eyes slowly tightened into their neutral and locked position. Not the dull glare from the party. Just a casual, accepting stare that didn't give away _that_ much embarrassment. I crossed my arms slowly, trying to appear unaffected as I commented.

"Samantha…Grandmothers are supposed to sit around in their own smell knitting all day and send poorly fitted winter clothing at random intervals."

I jerked my head back toward the rear half of her van, noting how new it looked. No wonder I didn't see this coming. Her last car has batwings stenciled onto the front grill and purple headlights. Very discreet. She kept smirking up at me with her head and arms leaning out her window at me like she was asking me about…Dangit, I already used the male prostitute gag, didn't I?

In case it's not obvious enough, she's a Goth. It's a medical condition, don't judge her for it.

"This how you break in new cars? Running down your only grandson to see if blood stains the bumper finish?"

And…I kind of inherited her sense of humor. That and the inability to tan, a moderate knowledge of half-assed poetry and teenage medallions. And a mental rolodex of Egyptian Mythology that she used to use for bedtime stories. She ruled that subject for a record stretch before retiring from teaching a while back and resigning to…whatever the hell she was just doing.

One purple line of an eyebrow jumped up under her single lock of bangs as she shot back without even pausing to reflect or show recognition.

"Alan-_Dearest_…you dropped your _darling_ white jacket!"

One of her milk-white fingers snapped out like a switchblade. I followed the path of her purple nail, looking behind me to see that hideous white jacket draped over the back end of a random car. It must have flown off when I jumped out of the way of this parked car.

I slowly turned back to her with a tight jaw. I just held back a growl, walking off to rip the jacket off the convertible's hinged trunk to the sound of her snickering as I walked back with it draped over one shoulder and my head tilted towards the glowing hotel tower behind us. Calming down quickly, I asked with a nod towards the hotel.

"What are you doing here? Dad said you hated these things."

She pulled her arms and head back into the van, motioning for me to get in the passenger seat as she called back.

"And so do you. Why do you think I went through the parking lot three times?"

As I clicked open the door latch and slid onto the glossy leather bucket seat, I just struggled to keep from showing any emotion. That's what she feeds on.

I'm not _that_ predictable…am I?

Out of nowhere, she sighed slowly as she turned the key and hit the headlight switch.

"Yeah…You are..."

…No, I didn't forget to put in the punctuation marks when I asked if she knew what I was thinking…

…Stupid repetitive inner monologue…

Twenty Minutes Later

She didn't say where she was driving, or where she'd driven in from. All I knew was that she was coasting down a nearly deserted highway, and the relief of seeing a familiar face had given way to…

"…Got a girlfriend yet?"

I just stared out the window, watching the black and orange reflective stripes of the lanes flick by as my grandmother tried to chisel through the granite shell I'd just formed when the subject turned against me. She was just leaning against the wheel, turning it with her shoulders as she flipped a white hand back and forth with each question.

"…How 'bout your sisters? Is Kerri hitting her head any less often?"

A confirming grunt. Then silence.

Most people gave up after ten grunts. But no, she was just gaining steam.

"You trying to grow your hair out? It looks like crap."

Slowly and forcefully, I turned to glare at her from behind my untrimmed and ragged patches of black bangs. I watched her just peer over from behind the wheel and the elbows covering it, closing the one visible eye in an obvious wink as she explained.

"…I _like_ it!"

Finally giving in, I shook my head with a purposely tiny smirk and glanced back out the window at the inside of an overpass as it zoomed by. I managed not to grunt.

"I…just kinda' been out of it. What with this banquet tour, the parties, the…"

She cut me off. In that same sadistically perky tone.

"Starting out in boxing with a brisk six amateur titles, flipping off the Olympic team to go pro…getting the three belts, then quitting before you get that big fourth one. And now, you're slumping around in the background like a gargoyle with a good plastic surgeon. And you can't just get over…"

"Shut up."

"I'll stop when you just _smile _for a change…"

She flopped her hand again, palm pointing over to where I was crossing my arms into a pretzel without knowing it.

I didn't smile. I didn't tighten my face even further to defy her like a normal teenager would. I just sat there and let it all bounce off.

She had me in a corner. Everything I'd been burying in social events and seclusion, everything that wouldn't stop jumping out at me in the mirror every day, and she just laid it out on the table like a bingo card.

She had probably helped me more than any of my main family could have. For one, she followed my boxing career online and sometimes bought a match video with my discount number. My family…just…I was off doing something that didn't involve ghosts, that's all that mattered. That guy at the bar knew me better than my parents did. He'd seen me fight. That's all there was to me, really. Boxing and being a Fenton. And Sam, as she insisted I call her to ward off old age, was one of the few who knew both sides of it.

Back in the divided front seat, knowing she'd grazed a nerve, she laid up a bit. By changing the subject to something so foreign that I couldn't find it offensive.

She scanned the empty road for a second before turning her head with a soft swish to look me over as I stared out the window with a slowly relaxing brow and a bead of sweat running down my cheek because of the sweltering jacket I'd pulled back on after my attempt to ditch it failed miserably. I heard her click her tongue, not really paying attention as she off-handedly commented.

When you just stare off like that…you look a _lot…_like Danny."

I raised the eyebrow facing the window, quickly asking out the side of my mouth.

"Who?"

She shrugged, looking back over at the road as she explained with a bored sigh.

"Danny. _My_ Danny."

My memory whirred and sputtered between my eyes, quickly placing 'Danny' as Daniel Fenton. A green-tinted box on the family tree in the den lit up in the back of my head, along with the slice of a profile stuck under his name. Jack Fenton's son. Died young, when my father was around four. Sam decided to pursue her teaching career in some tough areas, and left my father, and her and Dan's son, in Jack and Maddie Fenton's loving custody. Not sure what he did, exactly. I remember seeing his name tagged onto some old magazine articles that made fun of ghost hunting. I've heard they were funny.

…That's…also, the saga of how my father became the next Jack Fenton. Jack was the one who raised him and partly passed on the ghost bug to him. A few decades later, and Jack's grandson/prodigy is now one of the leading authorities on the paranormal. Along with my mother, who met him in college and just took the whole thing up to keep his attention during normal conversation. But somewhere along the line she became just as passionate about it. Ghost hunting is like mono, comes on strongest from a loved one and usually cleans out your system of everything remotely useful.

…Wait…I looked like _who,_ again?

I turned and opened my mouth to ask just that. She beat me to it with another shrug.

"You have his face…kinda'. Completely different body, different gestures and voice, but just looking at you…"

By now, I was turned all the way in my seat to look at her with a tilted head and that still-raised eyebrow. When her eyes bounced over and back again, she simply jumped her purple crayon eyebrows and finished.

"…Yeah…he used to do that _same _look when I got him weirded out…"

Please tell me she's not going to start going on about a dog she had back in the day, and the stick-ball games in the alley. Please, God. Don't let my last 'normal' relative go senile.

And He/She listened. Just like that, my rather young-looking grandmother caught herself and pushed off her arms into a two and ten driving position as the van looped into a low outcrop of buildings off the ramp. She swung her neck to get her clump of bangs out from between her eyes as she simply shook off the entire exchange and left me even farther in the dark. Then her face popped out of its Gothic toggle position into a strangely alive facial expression. Like some one just gave her a puppy. A black, spiky puppy with wings and a hatred for mankind. With vampire fangs.

"We're here!"

I turned around to look out the windshield, just making sure we weren't going off a cliff or something. She was starting to 'weird me out'. Whatever the heck that means.

We'd pulled into a loosely urban block full of brick townhouses and a few apartment complexes scattered around. And she'd stopped in front of a plain-built old townhouse standing on its own on the end of the block. My eyes scanned the ancient red brick, scanning the dark windows and squared roof before I noticed the gigantic…eh…spaceship or something jammed into the roof…And the fact the place was cocooned in currently darkened neon tubing. The next instant I was twisted back around in my seat, my finger thrust at my grinning grandmother like an ice pick as I yelled.

"You took me to _another_ strip club? The last one sent me into a four-day _coma_, and you just…!"

She broke down giggling, creaking her head down to look at the building's neon exterior.

"…C'mon….it was your eighteenth birthday! I mean, so what if you were shy…"

"I nearly SUFFOCATED! And I could still smell that brand of perfume three months later!"

…My friends say Sam is either the coolest grandmother ever…or she's just psychotic. Which one takes a remarkably shy and polite young adult to a 'dancing club'? I mentioned the coma and the perfume flashbacks. Do the math.

When her laughter died down, she wiped off her black tears and specified as she pointed up at the unusual building.

"…That isn't a 'club'. That's a house. _Was_. Last week the contractors finished turning it into a 'Fenton Museum'."

I slowly lowered my finger and glanced over at the plain front stoop. I could barely imagine it was a normal dwelling once. I mean, it had a mailbox.

"…Is that why it looks like that?"

She shook her head, beads clicking in her hair as she explained.

"…No…it just…uh…_looked_ like that…"

…Oh…Yeah…_Fentons_…

This turned out to be the reason she came up from Florida in the first place. To check out the converted childhood home of her only husband, and later, her son. Then she found out we were one town over from 'Amity Park' at that hotel gala. She found me wandering around the parking lot, and a dozen one sided conversations later I was closing the door to the place behind me as she pocketed the old-fashioned key and flicked on the lights.

First look around at the foyer of the original Fenton-household. First thoughts?

"Any of this crap _real?"_

Sam tossed her thin jacket onto a hook on the wall before glancing around at the rather normal looking foyer. It was a nice-sized entry hall, with a large coat closet built into the wall and some nice glass around the door.

And dozens upon dozens of framed information glued onto the once wallpapered walls. I let it all soak in, picking out each plaque as a whole rather than wasting the evening trying to read them all. Most of them were just beginner's information on the Fentons, such as family linage. So, there was a Medieval crest on the wall with 'Fentone' on the shield. Black and white pictures of the family immigrating to American. A very poorly done photo-modification of Jack Fenton in a loincloth fighting a dinosaur. Some bogus documents about our being related to royalty in three foreign and fictional countries. Oh, and ticket pricing info. This stuff isn't free.

She whistled slowly, taking it in a bit faster and even less joyfully.

"Wow…they actually used the design on the back of Jack's last will and testament…"

…Putting the blueprints on the back of your will…That, is a good way to guilt your family into a museum about yourself.

I should try that.

After pushing our way through the roped off entryway into the main part of the house Sam continued to flick each light switch we passed by without looking. It occurred to me she probably knew this house fairly well. She probably knew how to get onto the fire-escape to Dan's old window, knowing her.

The living room, which I had to guess on, had been completely gutted to form a large chamber with vertical display cases covering the walls. For a minute or so, I walked along the length of one as the lights clicked on in each section and revealed what was mounted on each section with accompanying plaque and photographs.

When each case finally lit up, leaving the two of us in a rather nice little realm of history and fluorescent tubing, she swung an elbow into my ribcage through that terrible jacket as she inquired.

"Impressed?"

I shrugged, pulling slightly on my crossed arms as I once again scanned the very classy wall of glass cases and their contents. I rattled off in a very positive tone.

"…Yeah. It's pretty cool."

…Random stuff with the word 'Fenton' slapped on…a fishing pole…Guns, lots and lots of gigantic but kinda' cliché-looking fire-arms…a lone case containing what looked like a plain silver thermos one of the workmen left behind as a joke…Jack Fenton's old jumpsuit stretched out on four hooks…An oil painting of Maddie Fenton with a rubber ski-mask pulled over her head…

That's…kind of…cool, right? My grandmother let her head lean against my white-clothed upper arm as she just sighed.

"I was _joking_...but hey, at least you tried to fake it. "

It was like she pulled the plug out of my shoulder and let me deflate. I just slumped down into a sigh, letting my polite admiration join my party grin in my little wallet of facial expressions.

"It's nicer than I expected. So, what was it like when…?"

I looked down at my side to ask her about the good old days, back when they had more interesting things like couches and footrests…Only to find myself alone. Quickly, I swung my eyes around the shadowy floor between the cases and didn't see her picking up a purple contact lens or something. I glanced at each doorway a few times, making sure she was absolutely gone before reaching up to rip the jacket off. I could feel the sweat building on the rather flimsy tee shirt under it, it was that hot. But as I got ready to shrug out of it, a voice called from the general direction of a darkened doorway.

"Check this out! You gotta' see this picture of Danny, I used it to blackmail a date out of him back in high school!"

Lesse'…admire a bunch of household appliances…see a guy who looks like me, probably wearing female clothing…

Took a couple coin flips, but I ended up stumbling through the shadowed doorway to see what kind of skirt the poor guy was wearing.

And with so much grace, I tripped over something unseen and landed flat on my face. As I slowly opened my eyes and glared down at the black tile floor with my nose pressed back into my face, I heard my tour guide yell from somewhere off to my side.

"And look out for that box! Somebody should move that thing out of the way or something…"

I tensed myself for a second before springing off my hands and landing on one foot and bent knee. I eyed the unlit hallway and its stretch of doors, rubbing my nose to make sure I hadn't broken it. Again. Since that lit-up display room wasn't that far away, I could just make out two doorways on my right side, where Sam's yell had come from. As I stepped up onto my other foot, I could squint enough to see that one was the landing of a staircase set back in the wall. The other was just a regular door. Which was cracked open a few inches with the hinges still moving.

Where to look for a lifelong Gothic follower…up the stairs, or into the dark room with the creaky door…I left my decision-making dime back in the display room, so I just shrugged and pushed the door open with my foot and stepped through it and felt my foot drop down onto a stair step. The next thing I knew, I was looking down another staircase at a featureless black abyss where the light from the cases stopped.

…Creepy basement with no lights on…Sam's probably reliving her childhood down there. Keeping a hand locked around the railing, I slowly descended down the metal steps and let the pitch black section swallow me whole as I kept one eye behind me on the partially visible doorway up at the top. When I tapped my foot into a wall and rounded the corner down onto level steel floor, I glanced around to look for Sam's probably glow-in-the-dark complexion.

…Then I realized I couldn't see a damn thing. I don't have night-vision contacts like my airhead sisters. Sue me.

"SAM! Ya' down here?"

Silence. And darkness. They mix pretty well, really.

"…'Kay then…I'll go check the _other_ basement of doom…"

I turned one shoulder to squint around and reach for the railing. Right as there was a wailing screech of an old door swinging closed. Then, the small pinprick of light coming from the stairs disappearing, leaving me in absolute darkness.

As I swiped my fingers through thin air, I just narrowed my eyes at absolutely nothing and calmly told the lightless basement what I thought of its mother before starting to stumble around feeling for a light switch with both hands.

After ten minutes of tripping over all the furniture, you can really get the feel for the room. The metal counters along each wall were a lifesaver, but could also add an official air to any casual workshop or family rec room. And if you make sure that absolutely no light can enter the entire freakin' house, you don't have to match curtain patterns.

The sad part of this whole ordeal was how unlikely it was. Recently, I switched to a retro-looking cell phone with an old, non-lighted black and white screen to balance out those little ear-crystals my sisters have stuck to their earrings. And my flashlight keychain, was too noisy to go in the pockets of those dress pants. And that nice pair of infrared goggles I like to carry in my back pocket ran out of batteries. Stupid coin cells.

But seriously. It was dark.

Who knows how long it took before I banged my had against something, and when I ducked under it and felt around to the sides I managed to land a finger on what felt like an over sized flip switch. Who would substitute a comically large on/off button for a light switch? A Fenton. As I sighed and banged the raised end the heel of my fist, I ended it all with one last stupid comment.

"I passed up a night of looking at ugly cars, for _this…"_

And nothing happened. I just blamed it on the age of the building and the lack of LED technology, but the low hum of something kicking on assured me I'd eventually be able to see my own hand.

Someday. I'll laugh at that statement.

I wish I there'd been a warning signal. Or a tornado siren. Or at least a little second of sudden realization where I could say something witty before it all hit the fan.

But there wasn't.

All I remember is the color green. A burning sensation in my corneas even after my sleeves shot up to cover them. A rush of steaming-hot air cutting by my ear, and the wonderful sensation of having my body thrown and slammed into what felt like a pile of old cardboard boxes. And hurt like a pile of bricks with rusty needles sprinkled on top for flavor.

As my suddenly aching forehead busted through the front of a discarded UPS label, the senses that weren't overwhelmed with pain started to kick back into gear. When my lungs stopped contracting and I managed to get some dusty air into my system, I heard my own back-breaking scream without even knowing I was the one yelling. Then a machine-gun patter of high heels cracking against metal, followed by a resonating steel clang as something was slammed shut. As the unexplained pain started to recede, I opened my eyes and stared out through the layer of old grime at the pile of garbage that had kept me from hitting the floor and sliding straight into the wall.

For a few seconds, or possibly a few minutes with the state my mind was in, that frantic clicking again accompanied by five pinpricks on the back of my shoulder as some one pulled me off my stomach and rolled me onto my back. As the makeshift mattress of old boxes cracked and crumpled under my weight, my half-open eyes stung as white light from the now lit ceiling bulbs shone straight into my corneas.

And just as suddenly, my vision was blocked out by two purple irises. My grandmother's voice, heavy-breathed and just as frantic was the way she'd sprinted across the basement and back in those stilettos.

"_ALAN!Alan! _Say something!"

The pain was almost gone. I managed to spit out a mouthful of old packing peanuts and rasp, opening my eyes fully as I adjusted to the light..

"…Something."

She pulled her face back. I could now make out her somehow paler face and her smeared make-up as she just hung her head over where I was sprawled. Then she just looked down at me with an expression that to this day I couldn't place.

Slowly, very slowly, I began to feel my limbs. Not the fingertips and feet, just down to the elbow and mid-thigh. This was enough for me to push up into a reclining position and slump down onto my knees as Sam scooted away on her knees and kept staring at me in that same manner. I let my slightly dry eyes slowly scan the basement, now fully illuminated as she had hit the switch when she ran past it.

A lab. Steel tables and cabinets. Pretty much all the crap my parents had in _our _basement. Except filled with leftover junk and debris that couldn't fit upstairs.

That's all I picked up on before my eyes settled on the subject of the hour. I stared across the length of the basement, right over the line of floor I'd just been thrown over at the currently powering down and dimming object that I must have triggered.

A…round hole set back in the wall, with a thick cloud of rapidly diminishing green light swirling around inside it. As the mist faded and the steel innards became visible, I stiffly turned to look at my unmoving grandmother and commented, twitching my head across the cellar at it.

"I think I pissed off the giant lava lamp."

She didn't laugh. She sat there, holding her knees and just staring at the space between where I knelt and the weird little gimmick in the corner that had just launched me like a potato. Slowly, her dark lips cracked into a single sentence.

"We…need to talk…"

Stiffly reaching up and holding the back of my aching head, I just stared.

"…About what?"

Forty Three Minutes Later

I leaned back against the counter, pressing both heels into the lowest rung of the stool I'd plopped down on as she paced the floor in front of me and stopped to breathe, turning with her hands behind her back and her eyes wide with blank hopefulness. I just stared back, struggling to keep from raising an eyebrow as I recounted, snapping a thumb towards that 'portal' in the corner.

Trying to stay calm.

"…So…Danny, went in there…came out…?"

She nodded quickly, finishing my sentence with a snap.

"…A Half-Ghost."

…I didn't even know the full versions _existed, _let alone the trial versions…I asked again.

"…And…you…him, and a nerdy guy you knew in high school fought…ghosts…?"

Three quick nods. I'd never seen her like this before. Normally _I'm _the one coughing up the answers when no one's asking for them.

For a few seconds, I just sat there with my face propped up in my hand and my eyes tense. And finally, I asked in that same tone.

"…Sam…you're just trying to trick me into another strip club, aren't you?"

The next thing I knew, her nails were digging into my cheek-bones as she screeched directly into my now wide-eyed face.

"Stop it! Listen to me! You've _GOTTA_ listen to me!"

My eye twitching from the way her nails were piercing my skin, I whimpered affirmatively as she let go and went back to pacing and talking.

Twenty Minutes Later

No more wisecracks.

I wasn't kicking back to a good story anymore. I was crouched forward on my rusting old lab-stool, crossing my arms over my knees as my grandmother sat in the one next to me, choking back one last sob and wiping off the last of her years and her familiar make-up with it. She held the piece of tissue against her eyes for a few moments, just pulling herself back together before snapping her head up with a familiar edge in her eyes. She scanned my wide-eyed, silent form for a slow second before blowing her bangs out of her eye and finishing without even a hint at her fit of emotion.

"…And he didn't come back."

A solemn, but mood-breaking snort as she sniffed back her running nose and hopped onto her feet beside the chair. She ignored the fact I wasn't reacting, looking around at the basement before stepping off towards the stairway and beginning a slow stilt-walk towards the stairs in those painful heels.

"…And now it's all back. All these years…it's…back."

She turned her back to me, still walking. Was she still even talking to me.

"Something…got out. I saw it phase through a wall after I heard the portal turn on. I'm gonna' find a working thermos, you just wait here."

As she stepped up onto the first step and settled into a good stride, I snapped out of it and demanded from twenty feet way, my face twisting downward.

"…Hold it!"

She rested a heel on the corner of the step, not looking at me still. I jumped off the half-chair and began treading quickly towards her.

"…This is…_nuts_!"

I began swinging my hands around, swatting the air to try and calm myself down.

"…You drag me out here…let me walk into a freakin' bug-zapper…"

As I came closer, her back didn't move. But she wasn't walking away, either. I continued, pointing right at the back of her head.

"…You gimme' some _bullshit_ about some ghost video game or something…! What, is this a drug flashback? _Ghosts, _Sam? _Ghosts!_"

I noticed the way her hands were twitching, but I kept on in my confused rage, walking up behind her.

"…Then…you tell me my grandfather was 'killed' by some 'millionaire vampire', because he wanted to take over the world?"

Now I was right behind her, still waving my hands in animation as I ranted to the back of her raven-haired head.

"And to top it off…you're saying there's a _GHOST_ running around outside, and _WE_ have to go _CATCH_ it? This is a sick joke, you know that?"

I stood there. Breathing deeply to compensate for all that, as she just slowly turned on her remaining heel and looked up at me with blank eyes. I didn't even see her hand move, I just felt the burning smack and the way my head twisted to the side as she plain out growled up at where I stood glaring down at her.

"…_Just…TRUST me!_"

With that…she left me at the foot of the steps as she stomped up and around the corner in those heels without even stopping to apologize for it. Not that it hurt, I'd just stood there with my arms crossed the whole time. Pain is like a room mate to me, nowadays.

…But…not the kind where you see your own grandmother smack you and stomp off like you were a lost cause.

By the time she slammed the door behind her, I was staring up at the empty steps with a slack jaw and my eyes snapping every few seconds to hold back a tear.

And just like that, I snapped out of it with a light punch into my own stomach and a whispered curse about how stupid I was.

Eventually, I went up after her. Stepping up onto each step, wringing my hands out of their sockets behind my neck and rehearsing every apology in my arsenal for when I got within earshot. When I finally reached the door an entire minute later, I just held the knob in my hand and took a deep breath, telling myself.

"…Okay…"

I reached up and wiped off a veil of sweat.

"So…she's acting…odd? She's a Fenton. Give her some credit."

As I tightened my grip on the steel ball, slowly twisting it.

"Just play along…find her a quiet place to cool off…try and sort this out in the morning…"

As I pulled the door open and stepped out into the now lamp-lit and rather cozy hallway, I just shook my head to myself as I looked across the hall to look for where she went.

…And saw some standing there…looking right back at me.

…It wasn't Sam.

Fear. It's the unknown. When you don't know what something is and how it got there, and why, you fear it. It's natural. A door slams, you jump a little and yelp. A dog lunges for your leg, you run. You don't jump back in a fighting stance like an action hero. You run.

Well…I'm not a natural kind of person. Boxing isn't a sport where you can run. Trust me. I'd been running from it for a month, look where it got me. So, what happens when a 'champion' or whatever the heck they called me sees something scary outside of the ring? Something standing in a doorway, in a darkened house, just standing there smirking at you?

I do…what I was taught to do when faced with any form of conflict. I do what I've done over, and over, and over again.

I pop my right side back. I square my fists up between my chest and my chin. I bend my knees into a slight crouch. And I get ready to plain out kill whatever just walked up.

This is why boxers get killed in bars all the time. But this time, it was even more pointless than usual, you know why?

Except…well…call me crazy, but I actually thought for a split second…that he wasn't alive to begin with.

Let me explain.

So, I open the door and go from rehearsing apologies to a Chicago-swarmer ring stance modified for a street fight. What the hell scared it out of me? Whatever you're drinking right now, either swallow it or jump the gun and spit it out onto some one.

…Some guy…who looked exactly like what my parents told me ghosts look like.

That's what I realized after the first three seconds. Before that, I just assumed somebody was waiting to jump me with a knife. But no, it had just had to get worse than that. This guy was a big enough freak to look like something my parents believed in.

He was standing in a doorway directly opposite the one I'd just stepped out of. He was leaning gently on the side of the door frame like he owned the place. Or thought he did, same thing. I quickly noticed where his hands were out of a defense reflex. Only to see he had them crossed over his V-shaped torso, again, like he owned the place. He'd been standing on one leg, with the other curled around its knee as he tapped the toe of the black and featureless shoe against the door-frame. He's just been standing there, waiting patiently for some one to come by with spare change.

This piece of shit had just walked onto private property, because Sam left the door unlocked? And he had the guts to stand around admiring the décor?

Then…he saw me jump into my stance. And in a blur of black-colored movement he squared up in an extremely similar stance to the one I'd taken. Was he…_mocking me?_ Was he just copying me to look like a fighter? Who was he?

Why the heck was this punk not running his ass away from me? I just caught him. Run. Punks run from ticked off guys in tacky suits, ask Darwin.

Then, after the rushed two seconds of me realizing there was an intruder, I made eye contact with him. And everything made sense. Then it didn't.

I'll start from the floor up. Just like I was, he was balanced on the balls of his feet in a pair of black footwear that was too dark and basic to pass as a boot or shoe. Tucked into these, or possibly an extension of, was a pair of black pants that could have been sprayed on. I couldn't see any belt hooks, pockets, seams, not even a belt. It was like his entire lower body was black.

I mentioned his torso as I saw him in the doorway. And now that he was somewhat standing up, I could distinctly see he was built like some brand of athlete. Wide shoulders, a rather elegant neck that kept his head level over his slanted shoulders. I can't give any details on his chest or arms or all that because of the jacket.

…Did I mention? He was wearing a leather jacket.

Yeah. A leather jacket. A nice little jet-black number that would look nice with a motorcycle to drape it over. Except like his pants, it was just black on black. No patches. No silver studs with his name spelled out. Just a pitch black, match-all jacket unzipped over a plain gray shirt that was sprayed onto his torso and peered out from between the open flaps of the jacket which apparently had hidden zipper chains. It was all very well fitted. As he angled his fists at me in a little pre-duel twitch, I noted how his sleeves didn't slink down his wrist. Probably had thicker arms keeping them up, no cuffs to be seen, he was probably stylish enough to keep things simple. Criminal or not, that's just how to wear a leather jacket.

Great, my first walk-in robbery, and I get the somewhat built punk with a full jacket to hide who knows how many weapons in

…So, what did he look like? Yeah, you're probably drooling over his fashion sense, but did he even have a face?

Yes. Yes he did.

The tan. He had one of the worst spray-tans I've ever seen. Both his hands and head were a distinct shade of dull-orange. It was like he tried for California tanned, but messed it up. Fake-orange glowing hands and face, and the hair…Yeash…it was either white or silver with a light on it. Pure white. And it looked like he cut it with a pocket knife, he had this stupid 'flowing over the forehead down over one eye' bangs that I wanted to hack off with something sharp. Think Sam's hairstyle, but white, on a _guy. _Stop flinching.

…But none of it mattered. None of it. Just hear me out here.

…He had green eyes. Not hazel. Not off-blue. Green. Vibrant, neon green. I swear, they practically glowed.

He had relatively normal eyes, anatomy wise. The white sections around the cornea, extremely black and slightly sharp pupils which were currently tightening on me from what must have been a few feet away.

And meanwhile, back in the doorway of the basement, I heard my mother lecturing in my ear. Years after the actual lesson. Here I was staring down what could be a rapist, prowler or homeless psychopath…and all I get is a lecture-flashback from when I was like, eight.

…_And green eyes. Usually a brighter, striking shade. Combined with the dominant black, white and sometimes gray palette, these features can describe an authentic and potentially dangerous supernatural being. Of course…if you can catch all that, you're usually too late. You should only check the breed and colors after you blow it apart, these things will bite your head off. This is just what they look like before you splatter them. _

…This oddly-dressed psychopath, would look just like a ghost, if they hadn't been nonexistent.

There. I said it. Ghost. I admit it, I actually thought about ghosts without being forced to.

…Remember that weird story Sam just rambled off to me in the basement? Just now?

Well…I may have been a bit vague about it…but for some odd reason, right after I quipped that this freak looked like a ghost, her little tale suddenly replayed itself in the back of my head. I don't know why.

…Wait…Ghosts…Walk-In Lava Lamp…Something…Got out…Was this guy…? Nah. No. Just no.

He did look…a bit creepy, I won't lie. He was staring back at me between his fists, flashing me a tiny and white-toothed smirk on one side of his mouth. Not much to say about his facial features. All I saw was a rough-looking male who had just broken into a house turned museum. Besides, I was too busy staring him down and preparing to slam him into the floor so Sam can call the cops.

…They'd probably stick him with a 402 and 274…Wait, does this state even run the 400 codes? Yeah, yeah, back in forty three, that whole Larson case…

Don't ask.

All this rambling flashed through me in about…two second. Then…I just kept standing there, staring with my teeth bared and my knees flexed to pounce…And so did he. Just as quietly, mocking my every move, obviously wanting to die as painfully as possible.

The spell was broken by footsteps on tile. I snapped my eyes off to the side, keeping one on my new friend.

He did the same, also keeping an eye on _me. _Touche'.

Frozen in my stance, I watched with a quickly growing sense of dread as I spotted Sam…casually clicking her way down the hall…walking right toward this weirdo as he stood there staring at me, while looking off to the side at her. She…was just…looking at him and walking closer to him! Not even batting an eye at me, just looking straight ahead at _him!_

Through gritted teeth.

"…Sam…What…the hell…are you doing?"

My grandmother was walking up to a psychopath that I had just caught sneaking around, who was possibly armed and dangerous. _Was she chewing gum? _

Okaay…So, she was even worse than I thought…New plan. If he moves, get him, and say he was going for Sam. That should buy me a few dislocations. Gotta' love those 400 codes.

Bracing myself even tighter for this sudden change of plans, I watched with rapidly deflating understanding as my grandmother stopped beside the rather tall silhouette of this white-haired freak…reach up with a spindly white hand…and tap him on the leather-covered shoulder with a bent finger, three times, as if she was trying to get his attention.

Staring in complete utter confusion…I didn't even notice the odd sensation on my sleeve. Al I could see was Sam's hand so close to this guy's arm. He could just rear back an arm, and…!

…Then she just grabbed his sleeve and tugged. I felt my arm tense, watching as he jerked his shoulder under her touch.

She was…either insane, suicidal, or both…what was going on!

And who the heck was _pulling on my sleeve_ while I was trying to see my grandmother get herself killed! Geez, the nerve or some people!

Not even batting an eye at her own grandson, she opened her mouth and said right into this guy's orange-tinted ear…

"…You done?"

Odd…her…voice must have echoed off the wall behind me…? Sounded really close.

Finally moving out of my poised crouch, I my hand out on a reflex as I saw her hand move again, this time even closer to who ever the hell this guy was. Before I could get my wrist in front of me, something grabbed me by the chin and whipped my head off to the side, pulling it down as it went.

A few inches away from my seized face…my grandmother glared at me through her smeared make-up. I watched as her lips pursed out.

"_I said…_Are you done?"

…I blinked.

She let go of my face, spinning with a visible wobble on one platform shoe before walking away from me with my head still bent down at her eye level. All I could do was watch her become smaller as she walked down the hallway with the wall on her right side.

I slowly glanced over to the left…at a perfect clone of my grandmother…walking down the hallway with a very similar wall on her left side. I glanced back at the one on the right. Left. Right. Left.

She stopped. Then spun back to face me with a visible eye-tick, and waved both arms out towards her twin, as if showing what's behind curtain number two. With an annoyed edge to her voice, she stated through her teeth.

"It's called a _mirror, _Alan."

Uh…wha'?

My failure to react only sent her further off the edge. She stomped right back over to me, her mascara dripping further with each echoing step. By the time she reached me, I'd finally stood out of my stance, but my eyes hadn't left the figure standing before me. She had to manually grab my chin again and turn me back down to look at her.

Something about the dulled purple of her contacts broke me out of my trance as she choked out.

"Get back downstairs…Go!"

Not knowing where I found the will to move, I jerked back out of her hand, feeling my shoulders flare out as I shot right back down at her.

"_What?_ Grandma…_Sam…_Calm down, and tell me what's going on!"

I kept eye contact for a few seconds until she slid her eyes down and kept talking.

"Alan, there's no time…Stay in the basement, I have to go unlock the cases and catch…"

I almost jumped back further when she brought her palm up and slapped herself, still facing the ground. She turned away before I could snatch her wrist, she took off down the dark hall leaving me by the doorway.

"STAY DOWN THERE, I'LL EXPLAIN LATER!"

I just watched my grandmother and her reflection clatter down to the glowing aura of the living room filled with the display cases…She turned the corner, nearly sliding off her feet due to the high heels before disappearing from sight. I stared after her before slowing and carefully turning my eyes back to the wall in front of me.

The mirror. The wall was a mirror.

And standing in front of the basement door across from me…stood that same…guy…who was now standing straight to his full height with his shoulders and head turned completely to the side, a perfect profile facing the direction Sam had gone.

I saw a single green iris staring right through me through the corner of his eye. As I relaxed, turning slowly back to face him…he did the same. I barely noticing the adrenaline still pulsing through my temples as I stared right at the face of my reflection. At the dark orange complexion. The way it brought out his sharpened, almost weathered features, he looked positively ageless. Except for the eyes. The eyes weren't even human. Nothing, not even dye-injections or contacts could make eyes that green. Even in the shadows of the hallway, which made it hard to make out the darkened parts of his outfit, I could see those eyes staring out at me.

…_My_ eyes…?

I watched the warped reflection as it raised one tanned hand, palm facing me. It slowly spun the wrist back, as if to look at its own hand…but it couldn't, it kept right on staring at me. He was too afraid to look.

That was me?

I confirmed it, opening my mouth, watching him copy every move as I told him, and in turn myself.

"…Whatever this is…It's officially scaring me."

He and I both turned our heads to our hands…preparing to look and settle this illusion once and for all…

When the distant sound of breaking glass shattered the entire moment, spinning my head off in that direction as my shoulders tightened back down into a ready position. He'd still be there when I looked later…Something about glass breaking just tends to hint at things like…Burglary, vandalism, arson, rape, homicide…All of the above…

…Or Sam just opening a case too hard! I nearly rolled my eyes, exhaling through the side of my mouth and shaking my head at my paranoia.

Rubbing my neck to try and calm myself down, I almost laughed a little. Honestly, thinking there was something up after Sam clearly states she's going to do something with _glass _cases and then heading down the opposite direction from where the noise came from…Man, I need a life.

I stood there, rubbing my neck for a few seconds…Then casually turned and looked over my shoulder at the glowing case room, where I could make out Sam fiddling with the lock on one of the cases, digging through her pocket for the keys…I nodded, still relaxed, as I turned back down to look down the darkened hall the noise had come from. I could see a light at the far end, in the little entry hall, the one with all the plaques and the pictures and the door swinging wide open with the glass around the frame smashed apart.

With that, I glanced over at the half-smiling, laid-back orange guy standing next to me rubbing his neck…

"…_Idiot!"_

…And breaking out in a full sprint towards the wide-open door to catch the piece of shit before he got away.

As I barreled through the doorway, leaping off the stoop and clearing the steps, I kept on berating myself internally.

…My grandmother collects Egyptian artifacts…She has them all around her house of the year, in these custom glass cases she cleans and maintains herself, she has a few cat mummies worth more than a hundred grand that the Egyptian government has a warrant to repossess. Yeah, she'd really be the type to break a glass case, especially when she had the keys right in her pocket!

If this guy got away with this…because I was standing around like a moron…I swore to God, I…I had nuthin', my life really couldn't get any _worse._ I swore I'd…Uh…I'd go to another boring banquet.

I hit the curb and ended up sliding a few feet, the those shoes had finally lost that new-rubber tackiness, I stopped myself on the edge of the curb and quickly did a full scan in every direction.

Both ends of the street…Clear.

I ran to the corner, looking down the third intersection…Clear.

Pausing under a lamppost to catch my breath, I replayed what my uncle had told me…years ago. I could remember everything, even the dinner we had been eating when he had said it.

_Despejar todas las rutas importantes visualmente. Entonces, si no tienes el sospechoso después de que la exploración inicial, llamada para la reserva._

…Lotta' help that was. Call for backup? Yeah, I'll call up the department and ask for a couple black and whites, and get me some coffee while you're at it, Rookie. Great day to be a cop. Really.

News flash, I didn't have a police academy named after me or a sterling investigations record like he did. Never ask a detective how to do something as simple as finding a punk who bricked your window window. He'll just change the subject to something about 'Reading people' or some other junk I'll never use.

The flashes of my childhood 'detective lessons' forced me into a pained slouch. Closing my eyes and tossing my head like I was throwing off a hat, I turned around on one heel and stomped back towards the stoop of the museum. I cursed myself under my breath, wanting to get it all out of my system before Sam calls me on my language.

"…You walk into…something in some one's basement…You make your own grandmother cry…You spend who knows how long staring at your own reflection, and some teenager gets away with busting your family home's windows…_you think you could be a cop?"_

Climbing up one step at a time, I glanced up at the open doorway and idly wondered…Why was it hanging open? Nothing was ripped off the walls or out o the cases. I stopped right outside the very sight of the crime, glaring down at the glass shards in the dim orange glow of an old lamp down the block. My eyes swung back up at the door frame, then back down. Only damage to the place was the glass around the door being smashed, and the door hanging open.

I slowly trudged back inside, leaving the dark night behind me, littered with the remnants of yet another successful crime. I reached behind me, feeling for the door so I could close it, still pondering the ordeal in the back of my head. I grasped the cold doorknob, squinting down at the floor tiles.

…The door was open…He broke the glass to get in, and just ran off when he saw one of us inside…A botched robbery. That's a code 346 back home. Up to two years if caught, might walk away with a few hundred community service hours on the judge's birthday. One last sigh, and I pushed off with my wrist to close the door and wait for Sam to calm down.

The old hinge squealed…Almost drowning out the patter of glass breaking outside.

The door was forced back against its hinges before it could even get close to shutting. For the second time that night, I cleared the stairs in one jump, landing into a run before banking off to the right, towards the noise. In the opposite direction than the one I had gone before.

My stiff shoes pounding the sidewalk, my bangs swishing out of my eyes against the whistling night air, I couldn't help but breath through my teeth as I tried to stop thinking of this as a 'daring chase'. I reached the end of the block, cutting straight to the next one across the empty street. Another distant patter of glass on asphalt. I heard the rubber slapping below me go into overdrive. I felt something crunch under me as I sped past a grimy newspaper machine, empty as ever, with the glass window smashed open over the curb.

Why not just strap a dripping paint can to your back, Kid. You'd be harder to track. Pretend I hadn't completely lost it twice already, and that's a very secure remark.

He was around the corner…He was running around and breaking something on each block…Probably a high school kid on his first crime spree. Was he armed? He had to be using something to break the glass, a bat or a piece of pipe. I had my cell phone and…You know what? Make your own dang analogies about a decorated professional fighter versus a gangly teenager with a wrapping paper tube. I had faces to break.

I threw my weight to the side, rounding the corner almost mechanically and keeping my momentum going to keep this a close pursuit.

I felt my legs slow down first…My arms soon followed. Seconds later, I had come to a complete stop in the middle of the road. My entire body had just gone numb, but my face hadn't lost the tight edge it had pulled itself into My eyes were still burning straight ahead of me.

…And all I wanted to do was turn right around and start running again. Away.

A scarce fifteen feet away from the corner I had just turned, sat a parked car on the side of the road, one of its tires wedged up against the curb making it tilt slightly. It was a beautiful sports car, with chrome accents along the grill built into the hood and a fresh coat of polish which glinted in the orange glow of a lamp post hanging directly over it, making it hard to identify its dark coloring but making the chrome glow warmly in the middle of an otherwise dark and featureless stretch of dark storefronts and stacked houses.

The windshield had been reduced to nothing but a jagged frame of black glass, as had the side windows and even the sweeping back canopy over the back seat. There was a faint halo of dark powder on the gray asphalt around the car, but as I stared right through to the storefront on the other side of the ruined car I could see most of the glass had imploded into the interior.

My eyes were fixed not onto the hollow canopy of the car or the rest of the street I'd just banked into. I was looking at the thing standing right in front of me, standing sideways and bent over the hood of the car.

It was…green. Bright, nearly neon green. That's probably the most normal trait this thing had.

It stood about up to neck…Probably a bit over five and a half feet tall. It was impossibly skinny, with a viciously tapered waist I could probably bit both palms around and legs and arms that looked like they could snap off. No clothing, or anything clothing could even cover to speak of. Completely green, featureless and genderless, like an abstract statue.

I had first looked at its hands to see if it was indeed carrying a bat. It wasn't. It had rather over sized, spindly hands that dwarfed the rest of it. It had both its hands on the hood of the car, which for some reason had a glistening pile of tinted glass from the windows or windshield stacked into a small pile between its palms. Its fingers were hidden in the pile, it was just staring down at it without moving.

Its had a head like a cartoon character. Simply gigantic, stuck onto an otherwise tiny and feeble body. I could make out its profile as it stared down at the pile of glass. An extremely bony, sharpened chin with a thin notch of a nose right above a dark line that indicated a closed mouth instead of lips. I didn't see any nostrils, just a notched bump where the nose usually is. I could just make out the whites of the eyes from the side.

…And rest of its head…was covered in…gigantic green spikes. Like pieces of broken glass that had been painted and stuck onto a mannequin by the hundreds to look like a punk hairstyle. This guy looked like a horror movie prop. A very, very good one. No CGI here. Just good old fashioned Hell-Spawn, summoned just for the production to add authenticity to the fine genre of splatter films.

Without any warning, its head jerked back, staring up at the bulb of the street lamp, before one of its hands rose up above its face with a handful of dark glass. Its mouth shot open, and with a flourish it dropped the shards into its mouth. The tinkling of the shards on its throat only added to the scene as the entire handful fell down…Revealing his uncovered hand with the fingers stretched out under the light.

…Revealing that each of his spidery fingers ended in a very visibly point…Slowly, the newly revealed claw lowered, and I watched with something between disgust and awe as it slammed its jaw closed, cracking the glass in its mouth. It then began chewing loudly, still facing up at the lamp.

…Right as I saw the rows of green spikes set back into its jaw like a row of fangs, I realized that this was _not _a kid with a piece of pipe.

This was a FREAKIN' GLASS-EATING DEMON WITH CLAWS, FANGS AND SPIKES GROWING OUT OF ITS FREAKING HEAD!

There's no police code for that. That's not even in the handbook. They cover the giant marshmallow men, but not glass-eating freaks with spikes and claws. Go figure.

Oh yes, nearly slipped my mind…I was standing in the middle of the street, sitting there like a chicken on a tree stump. Just staring.

…He couldn't see me. I was in the middle of the dark road, he was right under the light, his eyes probably weren't dark-adapted enough to have seen me run up. This wasn't an excuse. This was my only happy thought as I struggled to make my legs move.

There…had to be a way to explain this. A kid got some fancy costume online, decided to run around at an odd hour to scare a friend or two, and is now just stopping to have a quick refreshing drink of broken windshield before he goes off to cause more mischief. Wait…it was maybe ten at the latest, that's not even close to a good prank time…

Yep, I'm dead. Time to settle that bet with Aron. If I just flop over and decompose, Mr. Afterlife-Believer owes my soulless corpse ten bucks. And if my parents play if off like a ghost killed me, he has to dig me up and make that a _twenty. _They already faked my death back when I went off to box, that was just a rehearsal. This time they won't have to explain how the ghost of their son is going pro after three Golden Gloves titles, and did an interview for the same magazine that reviewed their latest line of fitness jumpsuits.

In my moment of silent terror, I just had to stop myself and ask.

…_Where…are these jokes coming from…? _

And after close to ten seconds of noisy glass-gurgling, the creature as holding an empty claw over its carved face, shaking its pointed fingers as if to get the crumbs off as it slammed its mouth shut, the crunch of the shards breaking echoing off the car and off into the night. With that, began noisily chewing as it scooped the hand back into the pile on the hood, going back for seconds.

And ever so slightly, as it tilted its head down to look at its meal as it chewed…I saw its eye flick in my vague direction. Before I could even hope for the best, a violently green pupil spun toward my and locked on like it had been watching me for hours. For a good second turned hour…all I saw was the shade of green in its eye as it slowly swiveled its head to face me head-on, its other twin eye locking onto me in the same manner as the first.

Green. Bright green.

…_Green eyes…Green body…It's not human…Is…this a…?_

From straight-on, its head looked almost inanimate. Except for the burning gaze it was giving me, it had no muscles or skin folds to show emotion.

So, it just spread the sides of its mouth back, showing two rows of green serrated edges for teeth…With a mouthful of black glass powder behind it.

Right before I saw a flash of motion near its body, the only thought running through my head? Not a curse, not a last loving thought to try and make my life seem worthy of such a short end…No, my last thought surprised me more than this entire evening put together.

…Sea food. See food. I finally got that joke.

The next thing I knew, a green claw flashed up in front of the terrifying bust of the thing's head…And I could see the glint of something flying toward me. Then, thousands upon thousands of glints rushing right at my eyes.

He'd just flung a handful of broken glass at me, like he'd thrown a fastball that exploded mid-pitch. And I was standing there waiting for it.

Nowhere to run, too late to dodge.

All I could do…Was close my eyes as my entire body tensed, waiting for the slicing impact.

I couldn't even scream as I felt the makeshift razors pass through my skin like paper…Not even stopping when they hit bone, a silent scream wracked my lungs as I struggled to simply survive the shock.

All I could hear was the blood pounding through my ears for the last time…And far off, and getting farther…Tinkling laughter. Victorious, sickly laughter as it ran off into the shadows to celebrate its first victim.

I felt my jaw move, without even knowing I could move it.

A sharp, pained rasp…So disconnected from the rest of me I could barely recognize it as my own voice.

"…_Ghost…"_

With that, I felt my knees loosen before giving out completely, I felt my hands scrape against rough stone as they hit the road. I couldn't open my eyes, I just rolled with the collapse of my strength and sucked air into my starved lungs with a silent pant.

I was going to bleed to death. It could happen in under a minute, or I could lay here for hours before finally giving out. The pain hadn't come yet. I knew it would all hit me if I looked down at myself. So I kept my eyes closed. It was all I could do.

…I was a champion. A fighter. The best. And all I could do when it mattered was close my eyes and die quietly.

…Until a distant triumphant cackle echoed into my ear.

That laugh…_That laugh…_

My eyes snapped open as I'd pulled a trigger.

All I could see was that same busted car under the street-lamp…A trail of dark splotches leading from next to the hood trailing off in my direction…And an empty, silent street.

He'd gotten away.

I had absolutely no control over my neck as it slowly craned down, following the lines of glass from the circle of light off into the shadow I'd been standing in…Until finally, with one last glance down, I looked down and saw an open hand in front of my chest, palm up toward my eyes.

Even under the faint starlight and the dying lamps, the burnt orange shade of the skin glowed against the dark street under it. Slowly, it turned, showing the darker tops of the fingers and thumb. I could make out a faint texture along the first joint of each finger. Calluses. Under their own power, they trailed down the back of the hand to the top of the wrist. I could make out the tight cuff of a leather sleeve, ending right at the start of the hand. Following a length of jet black against full black that was my dark-draped arm in the darkness, I soon found myself staring straight down. Unzipped around my torso, leaving my chest open to the air, hung a mildly fitted black leather jacket with the open front hanging off my sides to the ground under my knees. Concealing my torso, but not its shape was a tight gray shirt clinging to my skin under the force of its own elasticity. Glancing farther down, I could make out my knees, covered by black pants that stood out against the shadows the same way the jacket had. Flicking my eye so that orange hand wasn't in my vision, I saw something propped glinting between my bent knees. Thoughtlessly reaching down, I watched the tanned hand pry something off the street with two fingers, slowly holding it closer so I could see it better.

A piece of glass, one of many that had fallen short of me in the journey over from that freak's hand. It was a bigger piece, about the size of a wallet. Angling it so the light of the lamp wouldn't glare out a reflection, I stared into it, not knowing why or how.

Two green eyes. That same shade of green. Staring back at me from the glass, set back into an impossibly tanned face, with a wave of white hair hanging down trying to barely cover one eye and failing.

No cuts. No bleeding lacerations. No glass shards embedded in the skin or bone. Just that alien, unnaturally colored face staring back at me without a mark on it.

A glance back down at the hand holding it, and back at the glass. I then lowered it, tightening m brow and staring down the stretch of dark road. Keeping my brow low, I moved my eyes down to the glass.

…That same face. With the silver eyebrows right over those sharpened green pupils.

Not reacting, I then turned and looked over my shoulder, still on my knees. Squinting at first…then just looking normally as my eyes seemed to adjust, I saw that trail of shards continued on behind me. It stopped a good twenty feet behind me, I could hear faint clinks as a few stray ones fell down a rain gutter on the far end of the street.

Looking back over and down at the piece in my hand, weighing it with my hand as I looked at myself, I wondering how easy it would be to toss a large handful of it over some one's head…To scare them.

All of a sudden, I remembered the feeling of the shards…going through my skin…Was that my imagination? The shock just playing tricks on me? I didn't even have any on my clothes. I was fine.

Then it hit me.

What was I doing kneeling down and playing in the glass? I had glass-eating ass to kick.

Tossing my 'mirror' over my shoulder, not even waiting for it to break, I swung my weight with my arms and kipped up onto my feet without having to push myself off the ground. Taking half a second to make sure my legs still work, I then darted forward, reaching the circle of light around the car before pushing into a full fledged run down the block.

Getting back into the stride of movement, I found myself once again wandering the streets at full sprint, having no clue where he went or where to look.

Except this time, I just had to run one block before turning a corner, seeing a green figure bouncing around a storefront, and ducking back behind the corner and behind a disassembled phone booth.

Pressing my back into the bricks through my jacket, I took a good breath before inching back towards the very corner of the building, tilting my head over my shoulder as I muttered, not sure to whom. I must have been winded from the run, I still sounded like I had something in my throat, all raspy-like.

"Alright…Soo…He got into the house…Into the basement…Did something like I did, except instead of a new tan and dye job, he turned into a…"

I peered around the bricks of the corner for a moment…Watched a skinny green figure run across the street and heard glass break as he reached a vending machine…I ducked back into hiding.

"…Or, he was like that to begin with…"

Swinging my eyes around, looking for any signs of a person or car as I kept feeling my mouth move.

"Whatever happened…This moron needs to be taken into custody and needs his pointy little head filed down against the sidewalk…Or just the one. Get a good grip on his ankles…It'd be like street sweeping in reverse…"

…Was this a dream? A nightmare? A concussion?

Why was I…running around trying to catch a freak eating glass in some town whose name I don't even remember…?

_What was going on with that…thing? Why am I making stupid wisecracks? What happened to…ME? _

…And why can I see my breath in the middle of a heat wave? It's February, yeah…But it was like sixty and I could see it wafting out around my mouth. Huh, that's weird, so is that glass guy who broke our windows. Hop to it, Spaz.

…I…either needed some answers, or I needed to hit something.

My back pressing into the worn bricks behind me and slowly veering my eyes around at the quiet scenery…I felt my hands push themselves off the wall as my fingers slowly and effortlessly curled into my palm. Listening to my blood bang through my temples, I listened as my feet scraped down into the sidewalk, shuffling towards the corner.

As I shot out of hiding straight down the street, straight at the flash of green moving between the streetlights…I swear…I heard a bell clang. Twice.

…_Round two…_

It…He was having the time of his life while I was off risking my own. On toeless green feet, he giddily hopped back and forth in front of the smashed vending machine. Judging by the way he was grinning down at the sidewalk under him as he stomped it with clenched fists, he was intent on smashing the shards of glass into even smaller pieces. At a random moment he stopped, feet planted shoulder-length apart as he crouched down to scrape the stuff into his thin huge palms. As he held up a fresh handful, his jagged mouth seemed to tilt into a sharp smile as he somehow spoke with a strange echo to each syllable. His mouth was made out of something solid, the sound waves practically bounced out his lips like a megaphone.

"Yes-Yes…Dark is good flavor, but clear…Clear is…"

He slowly eased out of his crouch, standing to his semi-full height as he brought the handful of shimmering crystals up to his eye level. His eyes themselves were slashed with green splotches pretending to be pupils. They seemed to tighten on his palm, an almost sickly glow forming in the reflection of a nearby sign as he eased his mouth open, sawed teeth glinting…He gave his hand a warm gaze before tilting his head back and nonchalantly glancing around his side in his leisure.

His eyes were just big and shiny enough that I could see a dark shape pulsating around his pupils as he saw me barreling full-force at him.

He didn't move. Yet somehow, the glass in his claw sifted right through his fingers as if he'd gone limp in the extremities.

And just like that, he was nothing but a glowing green speck bouncing along down the far end of the sidewalk. There was a faint wailing sound, like a siren passing by in traffic. He was…screaming…?

A second later, my black shoe crunched a footprint into the puddle of glass powder as I went right on after him, letting out a scream of my own.

"Whatsa' matter? Can't walk and chew glass at the same time?"

And there was that siren going off again…Apparently he also screams whenever he turns a corner. So, when I reached that exact nook between two storefronts and turned the same way he had, I played along and yelled.

"…Lose me in an alley? What next, going…"

Barely a few yards around the corner, I reared back and slid to a shaky stop, fists balancing myself as my side as I stared up ahead of me with wide eyes.

…Which slowly narrowed as I straightened my back, cracked my neck into my left shoulder and began casually waltzing down into the freakishly dark alley. I would have started humming if I hadn't been panting for air inside my jacket.

Sliding my hands into my jacket pockets as I walked, I couldn't help but glance around at the wonderful scenery. The bare concrete exterior walls of the two buildings on either side blended perfectly with all these bricks I'd been running past for the last ten years. The bare wires hanging off an old light socket as walked under it. Swinging my eyes back in front of me at the solid wall with the dumpster against it at the end of this lovely dead end, I spotted my little green friend pressing himself flat against the ground and trying to press himself underneath the drab-green sealed dumpster. Judging by the pained noises he was making as he struggled to fit into a four-inch gap, he either thought he would fit or he was hoping I wouldn't notice him down there.

A good two minutes of me idling my way down toward him, I had finally gotten control over my breathing and was standing with my arms crossed a few feet behind him, looking down and trying not to let my eyebrow rise. Staring down at the way the scarce light bounced off his metallic skin…I almost started thinking again that something was off. For whatever reason, all traces of fear had left my body.

There was a loud clank, followed by a pattern of scuffles and clanks, and he was now standing with his back pressed into the dumpster, staring up at me with those blank green eyes. Feeling my own tighten even further, I ignored my reflection in his pupils as I slowly breathed in and then spat out at him.

"…Miss me?"

I didn't notice it at the time, but as I said that, my reflection in his glassy eyes quivered as something jolted through him.

The next thing I saw was a gigantic green hand, with five clawed fingers pointed directly into my eyes, hurtling toward me out of nowhere. My breath left me with a hiss as my reflexes sent my entire torso careening off to the right. I froze right as my balance began to give, my vision clearing up enough to see that freak's face glaring with fangs bare at where my head at been a second ago with one shoulder raised…Holding up a green arm that had to be over five feet long…With a flared claw on the end, twitching at thin air.

Was…his arm that long a second ago? It has to be bigger than _he_ was!

He was…stretching his arms out like a cartoon character, _how?_

…And he missed.

A faint rasp in my left ear. I didn't react to it, because I knew it wasn't really there. It was the like the wind.

_He throws a high right…You go low and left. You can use your body to move faster than you can snap your fingers if you know what you're doing. _

His eyes flickered over, seeing I'd moved. I saw his left leg twitch before he even knew he'd moved it. Once again I swung my entire weight around, turning to the side and forcing myself straight up as I saw something green slice the air inches in front of my right eye.

In the back of my head…My own, less raspy voice stated.

…_A TINY GREEN MAN WITH CLAWS IS TRYING TO KILL YOU!_

Yep…He sure was.

Without as much as a nod, I turned my neck to look over my shoulder. Barely three feet away, that ghastly mask of a face was staring at me with a look of pure shock. His arms were raised up above his shoulders, stretching out in front of him as if they were solid taffy. His right hand was still clawing at air right behind my head, and the left one he'd thrown to finish me off was now frozen a scare few millimeters away from my ear as I stared at him right in the middle of his waiting blades. The wind again.

_And don't forget…_

As my eyes stayed lock on his mirror-like orbs…I could see a clear reflection of a golden-skinned face staring blankly back at me with a brush of white bangs trying to cover one violently green eye.

…_Smile…_

As he realized what he had in his reach, he sucked in air as his solid eyelids slid down around the edges of my twin reflections. Right as that orange face cracked a white-toothed smirk.

…_And make him wish he never even flew out to fight you. _

His elongated arms tensed, going to slice my head clear off…The claws closed in toward each other, swiping through my trail of hair as I swept my head right under his razor-bladed clap. Now crouched under his arms, I looked up and saw him grinning at his empty hands for a split moment before he saw just how badly he had screwed up.

Before he could even look down I used the momentum of my sudden crouch to force my entire weight into a side kick directly into the center of his unclothed stomach. There was a faint smack as my rubber sole touched down on his marbled skin…Followed by a tremendous crash of hollow metal as he shot back a full two inches into the dumpster. His lengthened arms flared back, slamming to his sides as his legs jerked off the ground, all four limbs smacking against the metal rectangle as the force of my foot in his ribcage still railed his very being even harder into the thin sheet metal.

As his arms flew out to his sides, I let my body straighten behind the kick to add even more torque into the pressure I was putting on his midsection. As the momentum died off, I manually forced my foot deeper into the concave of his torso as I pushed my face over in front of my flexed knee. He was pinned off the ground into the side of the dumpster, still trying to comprehend what had happened.

And the first thing he saw when his eyes regained focus…Was my face two inches away. Gritting my teeth from the effort of keeping him pinned, I exhaled with a rasp right into his blank gaze.

"_What are you?"_

He answered with a sudden hiss, one of his dangling arms lifted itself off the metal wall…Before he could even think of it, I spun my knee off to the side, redirecting all the pressure to the side he was trying to counter-strike from. He shot sideways, creating a small wave of sparks as his head scraped the paint right off the steel. I could barely follow him with my eyes as he flew off to the front of the bin entirely and into one of the walls that formed the corner I'd backed him into.

I knew as soon as I heard it. I was never going to forget the echoing _crack _he made when he hit the bricks. And then the rattling thud as he bounced off and limply landed at my feet. His arms had gone back to their previous size sometime between the side-swipe and the…crack.

With that, I was staring down at him with my fists ready at my sides, my left foot finally back on the ground and planted in front of me. Left side tilted forward. Just the way I wanted to be as I waited for any sign of movement.

As I became familiar with the rare sensation of _not _fighting for my life…I noticed how the spikes adoring his head had become roughly snapped stubs in some places. And craning my neck for a closer look, I could have sworn I could see an actual crack forming in the shiny skin of his lower back.

That annoying little voice again.

…_He's not moving…Get out of there! Run! Call the cops, go home, and just sleep until things go back to normal!_

He…I had a point, there. I was a bit too calm considering the circumstances. Or maybe my inner conscious was a wuss. Either way.

Spotting something white on the top rim of my vision as I surveyed the fallen creature's glass-themed form…Yet another odd thought hit me.

Why was my hair white?

And my eyes…And my jacket…And my skin….

Why haven't I been wondering about-HOLY CRAP HE'S BREATHING!

There had been a sudden tremor through the tiny green body, followed by a sharp breath. I quickly bent further into my stance as a series of steadying breaths sounded from the still form. He was alive. Probably not ready to run a marathon, but alive and breathing.

But this still didn't keep me from jumping a bit when I heard.

"…_Killed…"_

My scuffling shoes echoed gently as I took a step back.

That same faint hiss.

"…_You…"_

For a moment, I just stared in amazement that he was speaking…Before comprehending that short fragmented sentence and feeling myself frown. I tried to keep my voice steady as I shot back.

"No. I'm still here, Freak."

Silence. Nothing but that fractured breathing. He didn't even try to move his head, speaking down into the concrete.

"_Killed…You…"_

Not able to stop it, my eyebrow lifted up behind my bangs. Not hiding my confusion this time.

"…What?"

Not missing a beat, this one.

"…_Killed you…."_

Looking down at him like I was, my eye suddenly latched onto a green crystalline shard on the ground near him. Some of that weird material that had chipped off his head when he hit the ground.

For a flash of a second, all I could see was a…wall of broken glass flying at me…Then without as much as a flinch I was back in the one-way alley, staring down at the whispering freak and the glass bits that had fallen off his body when he hit the wall.

_Killed me…?_

The doorway. The broken window. Running…The noise…Turning the corner…The streetlight…

…He was trying to _kill me back there!_

_He thought the glass actually cut me open when it just flew over…?_

Whatever this thing was…It wasn't breaking windows. It had tried to…I was dealing with would-be murderer. Wonderful, this just went from vandalism to attempted manslaughter…

That flute-like voice came out of nowhere, knocking me out of my trance and nearly making me curse in surprise.

"…_He…Killed…You…"_

_He? _Was he talking in third-person, now? Forgive me, my forte has always been with sci-fi, but I really wanted to sell this guy off to a fantasy-convention. They'd love him to little pieces. Give him a little hat, fake British accent, maybe dress him like a Japanese schoolgirl…No, wait, wrong kind of convention.

Then he said it again, same way as before.

"…_He killed you…"_

No. He didn't. He throws glass like a girl and-

_SAM. IN THE BASEMENT. SHE TRIED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING._

Holy sweet…capitals…Of all the times to get a mental post-it note. Sam told me to do something, and I probably forgot, wonderful.

_SHE TRIED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING! YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE HER, BUT SHE TOLD YOU SOMETHING!_

Oh, that?

…_Alan…There's something I need to tell you. Something your parents don't know about, something that I hoped died so long ago…_

_YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE HER!_

And a third, very real voice coming up from the ground.

"…_He killed you! Dead! We all knew it…You were DEAD!"_

She…wasn't making sense, how was I supposed to believe her?

…A faint click…Glass on brick. Back inside my own thoughts, I could feel the blood pounding behind my eyes.

_Alan…Don't ask why I have to tell you this…But I have to. There is a ghost outside. A real one. We have to catch it. Just listen to me. It all started…_

_WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST CHASE DOWN, ALAN? _

…Bullshit.

_BULLSHIT DOESN'T TRY TO DECAPITATE YOU! THIS IS REAL!_

Ghosts aren't real.

_THEN WHAT IS THIS THING?_

A…I…don't know?

_SHE TOLD YOU WHAT IT WAS!_

No…No. She was just being…weird, or senile, or…She was _serious_…

…_WHAT ABOUT THE MIRROR? WHAT WAS THAT? _

That was…I don't know.

…_STOP CLINGING TO LOGIC! LOGIC NO LONGER APPLIES! HE DIDN'T THROW IT OVER YOU, YOU FELT THE GLASS, ALAN! YOU FELT THE GLASS GO RIGHT THROUGH YOU!_

That was my just mind getting ready for it. It's a psychological thing. Not real.

_LOGIC! AGAIN! GET WITH THE PROGRAM! WHY DID SAM SPOUT OFF SOME RANDOM STORY LIKE THAT? _

…I don't know.

_WHY COULDN'T SHE LOOK YOU IN THE EYE AFTER SHE FOUND YOU?_

She…what?

_THE MIRROR. THAT'S WHAT SHE WAS TRYING TO TELL YOU.. _

No, she tried to tell me something…Just plain idiotic…Something about her husband…My grandfather on the Fenton side.

…_A half-ghost. He could do everything they could do. It became a calling, he was the only one who could fight back._

_WHY WOULD SHE TELL YOU ABOUT THAT? WHY NOW? EVEN IF IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, WHY NOW?_

…The mirror…

_SOMETHING HAPPENED TO YOU! LOGIC IS HOLDING YOU BACK! PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER!_

Sam. In the basement. A bunch of…weird ghost stories about some kind of living ghost. The mirror. The glass.

No, then why would…

_He killed you…_

He…you…He wasn't talking about earlier. He remembered me from somewhere. He didn't even care to kill me when he saw me standing out in the street…But when I got close…He ran? Why?

…_Danny…_

Sam was talking about her husband. Danny. Danny Fenton.

Two loud cracks. Something scraping.

Danny…Isn't that…

In the van. The way over.

_You look a lot like Danny._

…Oh God.

…_And it's what killed him. _

He…killed me…He killed Danny. She said some one killed Danny. A ghost. Not a car accident, a ghost. This green thing is a ghost. And it's saying that some one killed me. But if Danny is the one who's dead, then why…?

_You look a lot like Danny._

…Again…Oh God.

Ragged breathing, much louder than before.

_SHE TOLD YOU EVERYTHING. SHE HAD TO._

I just yelled at her. I didn't believe a word of it. That's when she started freaking out. I didn't believe her.

_LOGIC IS HOLDING YOU BACK. YOU DIDN'T EVEN MAKE IT THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL, HOW MUCH COULD YOU POSSIBLY HAVE TO BEGIN WITH?_

Ouch.

So…Whatever that thing in the basement was, that I walked into…And then I…And she…And then the little green psycho…And he thinks I'm…Ferrets…Being attacked by capital letters…I suddenly have a sense of humor…

_EXACTLY. NO TURNING BACK, WELCOME TO REALITY. _

Logic…really screwed over my childhood. I didn't believe my own father when _he_ told me about ghosts…Twelve years of non-stop ghosts…Never saw one.

_Ghosts. Replicated life-forms operating on ectoplasm the way humans operate on water. In a solid, singular configuration, they seem almost superhuman due to their bizarre cell structures and general invulnerability. They cannot be killed, but they can be stopped. That is our duty._

…Nineteen years of not seeing a single sign of paranormal activity later…And I just run into one at random in a dark alley.

_YES. SCREW LOGIC, THIS IS REALITY .WE'VE BEEN OVER THIS. _

And…_I fought it?_

YES. YOU DID. YOU CAN'T FIGHT BULLSHIT, ALAN. YOU KNOW THAT.

Wait…I spent twelve years memorizing battle strategies and gadget blueprints…Hours upon hours, sleepless night after night of weapon training and mental conditioning…

…And he went down after I _kicked him in the stomach? _

_YEAH…YOU…SURE DID._

My entire childhood was a waste…?

_WHOA THERE…OFF-TOPIC…AND, THERE'S KINDA' A…_

…Oh yes. Hell yes. I may have lost that bet about there being life after death, but now I can cash in that fifty for having truly having wasted my childhood on something more worthless than boxing.

I have discovered life after death, the existence of a supernatural creature, a chapter of the Fentons that makes more sense then the rest put together, I'm pretty sure I'm no longer human, apparently my subconscious is standing on the Caps Lock, and now it turns out my childhood training was indeed a waste, and boxing beats all. Wow. Give it ten minutes, I'll figure out JFK.

_HE…UH…GOT UP, YOU KNOW. LIKE, A MINUTE AGO._

I am taking this far too well, aren't I?

…_IDIOT..._

…Wait, what?

My eardrums nearly tore as the screech went off in my face. A real, very real voice for a change.

"…_DIIIIIIEEE!"_

That…couldn't be good…

He had gotten up. He was now standing a scarce two feet in front of me, legs awkwardly balanced under him as he stood there staring up at me with eyes that were visibly glowing. The spikes adorning his head had been smashed along one side, giving him a a demented air as he glared up at me with his jaw so tight I could almost hear his fangs crack under the pressure. I didn't pay too much attention to his face as my eye caught a flash of green off to the side…He had his right claw hurtling up through the twenty three inch between us, ignoring my entire torso and lower body, going straight up in a steep stab toward my neck.

I was…just standing there, arms loose, legs locked, jaw almost hanging slack…I'd been so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I'd left myself open for a surprise attack that a blind man could have saw coming. No fancy dodge. No complicated block. I couldn't even turn and run. I was just _done_.

My eye followed the chipped, almost serrated fingers as they came forth to slash my throat…And all I felt was complete calm. Just…nothing, no regret, no fear, just plain uncaring. I felt nothing but the wind of the approaching daggers and my own heartbeat.

…And my right hand as my fingers slammed painfully into a fist…As he came within four inches of my neck, there was a soft whoosh of night air, and a sharp pain of my skin breaking

…And it was over.

Fourteen Minutes Later

There'd been nothing but a faint breeze when I'd first taken off running…But as the night went on, there was now an occasional loud gust as the quiet forest of bricks and asphalt slept under the dying orange glow of the lamp posts. No sounds of distant traffic, not even a car alarm that went ignored. Nothing but the wind and the silent stone city that it would never turn.

From the open doorway of the townhouse turned museum, a series of noises inside the foyer echoed out into the night, interrupting the wind as it ruffled a flag that had twisted itself around its pole on a nearby rooftop.

Sharp, resonating clicks. The sound of a pair of cheap high heeled shoes sliding around on worn ceramic tile from the turn of the century. They tapped along a rapid beat for a few long second before becoming muffled and distorted as they went over the faded welcome mat. Three taps later, they came back full force, slower but louder as each shoe claimed a step as their owner bounded down the stoop toward the sidewalk.

A sandy scraping sound, and she was down the steps and struggling to keep her balance in the middle of the sidewalk. My grandmother had seen better days. As she stood there in shoes that were more suited for display than any form of function, her loose black skirt was still flapping against her thin knees from the jump off the stoop and her matching black long-sleeved shirt had began to wrinkle around her frail form from the sweat she'd broken in the last few minutes. Atop a properly postured neck, her head was swinging side to side methodically as she tried to survey the street and catch her breath at the same time. Her hair was no longer draped over her face, but swept back behind her head as if it had been shoved back multiple times. Even in the dark, her pale skin showed the jagged dark lines running down from her eyes, the remnants of a mascara job that had been ruined beyond repair.

As she looked both ways again, just as intently, her right arm tensed against her side. On the end of a thin arm, her white hand was clutching what looked like a silver cylinder with a green stripe running along its width on one end. With a handy carrying loop built into the lid. She was holding the thermos that had been displayed so proudly inside one of the locked display cases in the converted living room of the house-museum. For some reason this had taken her all of twenty minutes, and judging by the way her ribcage was convulsing, she had not been doing so at her leisure.

As she turned for a third two-way glance, she gasped in before yelling with her free hand next to her mouth.

"…Alaaaaan!"

Watching for a second, her hand still by her black lips, she then turned and repeated herself down to the other end of the street. As she turned her neck once again to look over, her face had visibly tightened. Finally looking down to adjust her footing and relax her shoulders, she muttered to herself through locked teeth.

"And he just leaves the door wide open to prove his point…I should have told him to _stay out _of the basement…"

Glancing back up with her eyes narrowed on an alley across the road, she was silent for a moment before commented back to herself.

"Then again…I sort of raised him to be a rebel to begin with…"

She closed her eyes and gave her head a small shake, throwing the blame over her shoulder before going back to looking around for any sign of life as she clutched that odd kitchen utensil to her side. As she prepared to yell again, she reached down as it to undo the snaps on her shoes. Better barefoot than clacking an tripping the night away.

As her hand reached a few inches below her skirt, she froze, still bent over to remove her shoes.

A second of stumbling and shuffling later, she was crouched with her feet spread and the silver thermos thrust out in front of her, her left hand wrapped around the rounded lid as if to open it at a moment's notice.

She was facing the alley right on the side of the museum, barely fifteen feet down from the stoop she was in front of. From where she was standing, she had her eyes locked onto a dull gray trash bin with a built-in lid sitting along one side of the alley entrance. It was nothing but a medium-sized, industrial plastic waste bin the city provided by the dozens for its occupants, they were shaped so they could be loaded onto the truck six at a time on each side. Despite this technological feat of progress…It was still just a trash can.

A trash can that kept making hollow thuds every few second, visibly shifting in place each time. As she stared it down with a purple glare…Another faint thud sounded, and the bin hopped an inch to the left, bouncing against the wall slightly. Nodding to herself, she reached down and quickly ripped off her shoes before slowly approaching the bin with the thermo still aimed in front of her with her hand on the lid.

Soon enough, she was a few feet away, still crouched and ready to…open the thermos. Keeping her breathing shallow but controlled, she silently tip-toed on manicured feet up to the side of the bin, squinting to see as the nearest lamp flickered.

…And proceeded to let out something eerily similar to a stereotypical martial arts yell…As she reared back and used her bare foot to awkwardly sidekick the bin so it skidded back a foot before tipping over onto its side, its lid popping open as it rattled against the bulging concrete under it.

And with the same sudden energy, she had jumped off to the side, thermos lid aimed at the toppled can, face tight with anticipation as if she knew what she had just done. Waiting for a second as nothing happened, she then crept forward with the same careful precision…Before leaping to the side again as she tried to see what was inside the bin.

Landing like a cat on the opposite side of the bin she'd kicked…Her eyes fixated on the exposed inside with an instant glint of familiar recognition.

…Followed by a sudden, but quickly ended second of pure amazement.

Hanging out of the open can, hung a violently green, frail arm barely the size of hers despite having a hand three times normal size. It was simply stretched out the open top of the bin as if the force of the toppling had forced it out.

Attached to this arm…Was an equally green, equally fragile body that had been occupying the bin when she had kicked it. It was laying out on its stomach with both arms stretched out, one outside the can while the other was curled along its back.

…Between the thin shoulders…Where there had been a gigantic mask of a face, there was now nothing but a jagged, splintering stump that had once been a functioning neck. No head to speak of. Like it'd been broken right off.

Staring at this gruesome but oddly artificial-looking sight, my grandmother whispered to no one as she held the thermos increasingly tighter.

"…Oh, like that ever fooled me…"

As if the glass-like corpse had heard her…The hand laying outside the bin twitched, its clawed fingers flexing despite there not being a brain to direct the action.

Not missing a beat, she ripped the lid off the canister, and watched without any sign of emotion as there was a green flash of light lit up the alley.

…A click as she replaced the lid…And she looked at the now empty, unoccupied garbage bin with a faint air of curiosity on the edge of her eyes. With no explanation, she then relaxed back to a standing position, tucking the thermos under one arm as she reached up to wipe off her forehead, the mascara tears suddenly out of place as a small smile crept out onto her cheeks.

…A job well done.

In the middle of wiping her forehead, she must have noticed her hair misplacement as she proceeded to pull her bangs back down over one eye as she thought out loud.

"…And people are afraid of these little ones…I mean, it didn't even have a…"

As she adjusted her bangs to her exact specification, her speech slowed down in realization.

"…A…Head…Oh, great…"

Her fingers letting go of her hair, the dark locks popped right back up onto her head rebelliously. Their owner just stared at the wall with half-open eyes, softly groaning.

"…Now I have to find his _head? Wonderful…"_

Glancing off to her side almost coyly, she went on to herself.

"If he were here…I just know he'd make a stupid joke about…"

Standing a few feet behind her, just out of the light of the lamp post where I blended in with the bricks, I finished with a sore rasp.

"…About his body being tossed out with trash, while his head is in the recycling bin?"

After a jerking pause, she turned over her shoulder to look at me, the soft sarcasm from before lost to something between fear and surprise.

I was situated deeper in the alley, in the shadow of the museum building, leaning heavily against the building next to it with my knees locked and my arms folded against the softness of my jacket. I didn't bother turning to look at her, I had my head hanging towards my chest. Staring straight ahead at the dark wall across from the one I was leaning on. I could just make out something white hanging over my left eye, my hair had settled down since I'd finally stopped running around.

From the angle I was in, I had been able to hear her heels clicking inside, I'd watched her look around before she ran over when she heard the trash can moving. I could have yelled back when she was screaming for me…I just didn't.

And now, I was just looking over at her from my exposed hiding place, crossing my arms tighter into my jacket as her purple orbs filled me with some nameless emotion I just didn't want.

She regained her senses quickly enough.

"…A…Alan?"

Swinging my eyes back over to the wall, I just grunted softly.

She was speaking differently. Slower, less casually, but with a softer edge that I'd rarely heard her use except with me and a few of her students. A loud whisper, very relaxing.

"Are you okay?"

Before I could respond, there was a muffled noise from between us. From the upside-down knee-high recycling bin that had been sitting next to the can, the one I'd flipped around and used like a makeshift cage.

Ignoring her question, I sighed in monotone.

"His head's under there…Might want to…"

The sound of the plastic creaking…A brief clip of a high-pitched cursed word followed by an electronic-tinged whoosh. The click of the lid going back on the thermos.

A few seconds later, her voice again.

"Alan…Come out into the light."

I stayed where I was.

"…Alan…I'm sorry about earlier, I really am."

I didn't move.

"…You see why I was so freaked out, now?"

I hesitated…Before giving a light, but positive grunt.

She had the thermos under her arm again, standing upright with her head tilted to the side slightly as she squinted at the shadowed area my voice was coming out of. She'd relaxed her features, probably more for my sake than hers. It would have been more effective without the black tears running down her face from earlier. Her voice was so soothing, it couldn't have been coming from anyone but a retired teacher. That's how good teachers talk. They just do.

"Are you hurt?"

…Crap…They always know. The guys at the gym wouldn't notice if I walked in missing a limb, but something about older women lets them see splinters from a hundred yards away.

I stayed silent, staying in my shadow.

Tilting her head back upright, her softened eyes tightened slightly. Her tone changed.

"Alan. Get out here. Now."

…Again…Only a teacher can go from soothing to 'Get out here' without so much as lowering an eyebrow. Barely a second later, I pushed off the wall and shuffled out, pausing for a millisecond before finally stepping out into the lighted front of the alley where she could see me clearly. She didn't so much as nod at this, she just stopped squinting. She did this for about ten seconds, which I spent standing there with my arms folded into my jacket and my eyes down toward my shoes.

I hard a few faint scuffs of skin brushing the ground…And then I felt two small hands grabbing my sleeve. Gently, she somehow pried my arms apart, showing that my right hand was buried inside the flap of my jacket. I didn't resist as she pulled it out and held it out so she could see it.

A few seconds later, I looked at the hand she'd just pulled out of my jacket where I'd been hiding it.

…Hanging palm-down in front of my grandmother's still face, the orange light of the lamp only highlighted the dark tan that had taken over the skin on the back of my hand. Which was strongly, almost violently contrasting with the bright green splotches that had built up along the back of the calluses along each protruding knuckle. It could have been paint, it was that unnatural a shade of green.

No…My knuckles had been nearly torn open and apart…The blood that was seeping out onto my hand and that was staining my shirt inside my jacket, was that sick color as the stains spreading down my hand.

It's why I put it in my jacket. I couldn't look at it anymore.

Staring at my wounded hand, she resumed that soothing tone again. I listened intently, more worried about when the other tone would come back than if this one would last.

"Did…He do this?"

I didn't answer. I just jerked my bangs over her shoulder, at the overturned trash can. One quick turn of her head to follow my pointing, and she turned back with a distinct mix of confusion and realization.

She had just seen a ghost with his head popped off like a toy robot. True…His body and head were still moving around and occasionally cursing, his head and body were detached. My hand looked like I'd just punched a window. What a coincidence…That guy _ate _windows. Was there a connection between a living glass sculpture with his head broken off, and my hand? Currently…There was no connection.

There _had _been a connection, for a second there…Then his head flew off and hit that fire escape…Then they connected again when I had to throw rocks at it to get it back down from that planter it landed in and stuff it under that box while I dumped his flailing body into the bin. One-handed, mind you.

Confirming the unspoken understanding, she sighed.

"…_Oh_…So you…?"

Trying to hold back that dang rasp, I answered as solemnly as possible.

"No, I was...just out window shopping…With a brick. I happened to notice that some guy had gotten himself decapitated and stuck in the trash right before you came out looking for him. I would have told you earlier, but…"

I shrugged, trying to get my hand back inside my jacket. She held strong, so I just finished just as seriously.

"…Please…Let go?"

I winced as her teeth flashed. She was still looking down at my hand as she held it in a death grip.

"I told you to stay in the basement."

"Sam."

Her grip tightened, almost enough to start the bleeding again.

"You could have been killed."

"…Sam…"

"I told you…To stay inside, to keep you safe. Why the hell did-"

A twitch. Right above my right eye.

"Grandmother…"

She didn't look up. Her gaze stayed on my wounded hand.

"Alan. If you weren't twice my size, I swear I would kick…"

"_Look at me!"_

With that I reached over with my free hand and jerked her chin up, forcing our eyes to meet. Even in the dim alley, I could make out the way her pupils shrank back as they looked into mine. Ignoring this, I grabbed the conversation by the horns and slowly asked with careful wording.

"Do you remember what you told me?"

From that distance, all I could see was her eyes. They didn't answer.

"…I said, do you…"

A faint squeak. A high-pitched, positive squeak. Holding back a sigh of relief as I realized I hadn't hallucinated it all, I forced myself on.

"I…believe it. All of it."

I paused…No reaction from behind those purple contacts.

"…I…I'm sorry."

A quick breath.

"You were…trying to warn me about…"

Those two eyes just bobbed in place. A nod.

"…Sam…Whatever happened to me…I think there's something I need to tell you…"

Meanwhile, I eased my hand out of hers. She'd lost the strength to hold me back any longer. Replacing it in my jacket, I took my other palm off of her chin and placed it on her shoulder. With one last short breath and a quick squeeze to make sure she was steady, I finished.

"That…thing thought I was…Danny. _Your _Danny."

I felt the chill run through her under my hand. I held strong as she shot back like I'd slapped her. The eye contact broken, she swung her head back down, her bangs draping down as she hissed back.

"_No."_

Straightening up, I tried not to sigh.

"You said yourself…There's a bit of a resemblance…"

Taking advantage of her position, I quickly made a considerably less dramatic glance down at myself before popping my eyes back up like nothing happened. Under my breath, I added.

"…And we apparently use the same brand of atomic tanning bed…"

She hadn't moved. She was just standing there with her hair falling down over her face like a mannequin. I gently shook her by the one shoulder. As I went to lean down to look at her to see if she was alright, she snapped out from under my hand, shuffling back on her bare feet as her hands flew up under her bangs to further cover her face.

I stayed where I was. I stared blankly, digging for answers within my common sense and finding none. I awkwardly crossed my arms while keeping my bad hand in my jacket as my grandmother continued doing nothing but covering her face. Freed from the effort of talking, my thoughts wandered.

She must have been having a makeup dysfunction. Something dripped into her eye and it's too painful to speak. With all that paint she globs on, it's no wond…

_She can't look at me…Because I look like…? Him. Danny. The ghost thought I was him, and now Sam sees it. I look like her dead husband. _

I look like my grandfather. It's that simple. And now I just got thrown in with something that got him killed decades ago. No wonder she's flipping out.

_An idiot who looks exactly like a guy who was killed for doing exactly what I just did to that ghost! Why not switch briefcases with a Russian and talk to the guy in the trench coat while I'm at it_! _I just wandered into something that GOT SOME ONE MURDERED!_

And I think I forgot what my room number was back at the hotel.

_What if that one guy hears about this? He'd want to finish the job. Odds are he's dead, but…Oh…Yeah…Ghosts…Already dead. Crap. _

…The ice machine was two halls down…I remembered that fake plant across the way…

…_Unless Sam just keeps the guy in that…Fenton Mug-Thingy. Just keep him inside there away from the other freaks, he won't rat us out. Maybe throw it into some wet cement, find out if this town has a deep river…_

377. That was it. One problem out of the way, back to my being a dead man.

_That's why Sam was so upset. She had to look at me while she explained all that. It's like explaining how deadly brown recluse bites are to a guy with one sitting on his head munching an after-dinner mint!_

Just stay calm. Everything will sort itself out, like they always…Who am kidding, I'm a Fenton, this is as normal as things are going to get.

A muffled sniffing sound jerked me back into reality. I was still standing in front of Sam in the back half of the alley. She hadn't taken her hands away from her face. A quick glance down showed that my posture had considerably relaxed during my brief battle of wit with my logical side. My good arm was hanging down against my thigh, my shoulder slack on either side of my neck, my skinned hand still buried in the fold of the jacket.

That sound again, somewhat louder this time. No doubt about it, she was crying. The awkwardness righted my posture seconds before she wiped one hand away to shake off the drops of ruined makeup. Then the other side. She leaned her face up as her hands slipped into her windbreaker. Her now bare, pale-rimmed eyes looked up at me through a mask of hastily dried tears. I just stared back, not knowing what to do.

"…I need my shoes. Go wait in the car, I'll lock up."

And she turned on one bare foot, and walked out of the alley. She stepped over the recycling bin right before she turned the corner, not once looking anywhere but forward. It was like she'd just gotten something her eye. No emotion. She was the untouchable teacher again.

And I was the extremely confused, bleeding freak that needed a hug. Seconds after she turned that corner, I was still staring after her with no expression save a single raised eyebrow and a slack jaw. I must have been like that for a good ten seconds before shaking my head slightly and breaking into a brisk jog, hurtling the garbage bin on the way out.

I would have walked, but if I saw one more brick alley or street lamp I was going to drop my pants and start preaching on a street corner about the apocalypse.

Sixteen Minutes Later

"What about the hair? Will this wash out?"

Drum roll…And…Nothing. To celebrate this streak, I reached down to my side and pulled the seat lever the rest of the way down. Three seconds of near-silent hydraulic humming later and the passenger seat of Sam's van had tilted back so far I could see out the back window without taking my neck off the headrest. The light rocking of the car as it revved along the older concrete of the interstate made me feel like I was in a massage bed with a seat belt. Letting go of the lever, my left arm uncrossed back to my other side, nestling it around the bulge in my jacket that was the remains of my right hand. Shooting the distant headlights behind us a pondering glance, I leaned over again and inquired with a achingly dry mouth.

"If we're going back to the hotel, I have to stay in your room so they don't see me. Jim and Helen are probably still downstairs, but the girls might have gone up for the night."

Barely two feet away from me, my grandmother sat behind the driver's seat with her elbows on the wheel as usual, her face propped on top of them with her forehead barely avoiding the slanted windshield. Every few seconds she'd adjust herself slightly to turn or glance at the mirror. She'd been doing this since she gotten into the car, after about ten minutes of her not even looking at me, I'd just stopped caring. At first my questions were honest if not desperate, now I was more or less talking to myself about what to do next.

Of course this question was ignored, and I continued tinkering with the seat controls while trying to collect my thoughts. As I reached over again to try and see if the thing had a footrest, I idly shot off another rhetorical inquisition.

"...Got a girlfriend yet?"

Not bothering to wait for a response, I broke down into a pained sigh, turning half onto my side to look out the side window.

"And I used to wonder how you kept these conversations going…You were just trying to keep sane, weren't you?"

Squinting to try and make out the trees flying by the roadside, I added.

"Of course you were. You're the only sane Fenton I know. Everyone else is pretending to fight something that they've never even seen, or forcing their kids to."

I spitefully added.

"...Or off wasting their life because they couldn't even do pull _that _off."

Crossing my arm over the other, I let my eyes slide closed and watched the orange stripes of the road lights flick by. Stopping to breathe and try and wet my mouth, I had nothing else to do but continue talking to myself.

"You know, you never really struck me as a superhero love interest. You only get kidnapped about twice a week, and your IQ is about equal to room temperature. What's your secret? Dying out the blonde down to the roots, or shock therapy?"

Rocking my head against the cushion, I jumped over to the next remark.

"I swear my dad mentioned once that you were r...What was that?"

I jerked over to look at her, eyes flashing.

She was still slumped over the wheel, deep in highway hypnosis. Keeping both eyes on her, I lowered one brow and demanded.

"Did...you just _snort?"_

Silence.

"You just laughed. Admit it."

She clicked the turn signal on and shifted her weight as she changed lanes. I just rolled onto my back and sighed. Humor was no use. Neither was honest questioning, small-talk, nostalgia, or plain out begging. She wasn't budging.

She did snort, though. Not sure if it was her sinuses or if my joke actually hit home, but she snorted and that's not to be argued.

A few quiet miles later, she clicked the signal again and we turned off onto an exit ramp. The van began to slow down before her signal clicked one last time as we coasted off the side of the road, cracking over the fresh pebbles for ten feet before finally stopping. She didn't turn the hazards on, that was the only indication I had that we hadn't broken down. She stayed on top of the wheel as she stared out the windshield. I was still stretched out on my back in the reclined seat, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for whatever she was waiting for. I soon got lucky.

"You can't tell anyone where we went tonight."

Her voice was at full strength, perfectly rehearsed. She'd certainly had time to plan it. She hadn't look at me since she'd gotten in the car, and she obviously didn't plan on doing so.

"You tell anyone who asks, that we met in the parking lot and you helped me unpack in my room. We're never going to speak of this again, because that's the only way you can survive this."

I blankly repeated her.

"...Survive this..."

"This killed Danny. And it will kill _you_."

Figured.

"The only way to stop this, is to act like it never happened. We never went to the museum. You never went in the basement. Nothing came out, neither of us saw or did anything unusual. You cut your hand helping me fix the van."

"Sounds good. Then we went out to some Goth salon and you forced mt to change my skin, hair and eye color. And I'm bleeding _glowing_ green blood all over my jacket because we went out to some hipster club and drank glow-stick fluid out of coconut shells while dancing to backwards country music."

"Don't try to be funny."

"Like they wouldn't believe that. They never even figured out I started boxing after national three title wins. I could have won the other four, been the world champion, they'd still think I was out visiting relatives for months on end. Fooling Fentons is...Well, you married one, like I have to tell you."

Her sudden hiss of breath quickly snapped my jaw shut. She pressed on.

"...We have to keep this secret from _everyone, _not just the family. Anyone who sees something or hears about it, is one more chance for him to find you. There's no safe limit, no exceptions. This ends tonight."

..._Him...So he is alive..._

"Don't worry about how you look, I'll explain that later. For now, promise me that you'll forget everything I've told you after this. Learn from it, but never think about it again."

Still leaning back, my posture had gone ramrod straight and the expression had drained from my face as her speech had gone on. Without so much as a pause I told her.

"I promise."

She didn't show any relief, but this allowed her to go on knowing that I agreed with her.

"Good. Now, as for...you. It's possible to change you back very easily. It's just a physical change. The portal was fixed years ago so nothing like this would happen. This is just a temporary side-effect of being zapped. You're still human, you just sort of look like what Danny was. No powers. Once you change back physically, you'll be just like you were before."

My breathing became manual, forced and rattling. She hadn't moved an inch, still staring out at the side of the road with all her weight draped around the steering wheel like she was looking for the next exit sign.

"After you change back, this will all be done. We'll go back to the hotel, hang out with everyone until you guys go back home, you go back to doing whatever, I go back to sitting around smacking myself for retiring when I'm still so young and perky."

Oh, now she gets all funny Does bad comedy timing run in our side of the family or what?

"Just lie back like you are, close your eyes...Concentrate on yourself. The person you see in the mirror every day. Blue eyes, black hair, that little frown, just think about yourself and nothing else. Just do it, and everything will go back to normal."

I was waiting for her to just look at me. She never did. All i could do was take one last shaky breath, slide my eyes shut, and try to do what she was telling me to do.

The cushions in the chair were starting to make my shoulders numb as I forced myself to remember the face staring back at me in the bathroom that morning. I could make out my pale skin standing out with a pink tinge against the white wall behind me. My greasy, uncombed black hair trying to cover one of my eyes with hat single strand of bangs. I could even see that tight frown I'd been wearing for months now.

...When I tried to imagine staring into my own eyes...There was just a flash of green that quickly sent me back to desperately focusing on my skin and hair. Not the eyes. There's no way to forget those eyes.

Barely six seconds of forced meditation later, I had gotten so anxious I jerked upright in my seat and threw my hands up before opening my eyes. No point in waiting for the Ice Dutchess to do or say anything, I needed to know.

I choked back a groan as I stared down at two normally colored palms poking out of a set of pearly white leather sleeves. Flipping them over, I saw the reddish brown stains across the back of my right hand, the sliced cut still open and adding to the clotting red fluid that threatened to drop down and ruin my white sleeve.

Never thought I'd be so happy to see my own blood.

Not bothering to do anything about my hand, I fell back with a thud into the seat, emptying my lungs with a single sigh. Before I could adjust the way my shoulders hung off both sides of the chair, the van's engine abruptly revved and we took off down the road with a squealing swerve. As I steaded myself against my door handle, my grandmother's voice chirped over.

"I heard from your mom that they're trying to get the girls to do a teen fashion line...Please tell me they're not paying for everything like last time. They could have put you through college with how much they lost trying to get those girls a label line."

...Put me through college in Hawaii with two cars and a beach house for the weekend, actually. If it weren't for the stock portfolio my great grandparents started up with their inventions, my family would have probably have been in the poorhouse with how stupid my mother gets with all this publicity junk. Just the year I started boxing they tried to...

...She wasn't kidding. She was completely blocking out everything that just happened. Everything. We were seriously going to ride back to the hotel like nothing happened, and never talk about it again.

"Yeah. We still have a few crates of pastel jumpsuits lying around from the last fiasco. Tried giving them to good will. I swear the family that got them mailed them back to us with a Dear John letter."

Hey. Either I drive myself insane with endless questions and inner turmoil, or I talk about how stupid my family is with the only person I know who won't think I'm making it all up for attention.

She snickered quietly, sighing something about my mother that I couldn't make out.

I leaned up a bit and glanced over to see that Sam was now hanging back a bit off the wheel, smiling to herself and hanging one hand off her folded arms just like she had on the drive over. Not a care in the world.

She'd just dumped all of those on me. No tag-backs.

Four Hours Later

"...You did _what _with my locker?"

My phone's speaker erupted in garbled laughter from hundreds of miles away. Glaring at it, I adjusted my left-handed grip on the retro-styled phone pressed to my right ear. As soon as the other person stopped laughing and explained it was a joke, i just shook my head and light-heartedly growled.

"That's enough. Just tell everybody that I'm coming back down as soon as possible."

A questioning warble.

"...Meh...They don't care. My grandma just showed up out of nowhere, she'll keep things running for me so I can catch the next flight home."

The sound of a car lock beeping made me glance over to my left. I was surrounded by a dark night sky, blotched with the spotlights and neon adorning the hotel property. I was sitting atop a small cinder-block hut structure with a makeshift ladder of water pipes snaking up one side, I was using the water meter as a backrest. The hut was poking up in the center of the hotel's expansive roof. The side-wing off near the lobby featured a currently closed pool and bar on the top with formal railings on every side, but the biggest building had nothing on top except for this fancy little clubhouse thing that had a door leading into the fire escape stairway that went straight down through every floor of the building, including the cavernous basement which I found has terrible cell phone reception.

My phone friend became quiet, making some almost sympathetic noises through the long-distance static. I tightened my jaw, staring up at what was either a star or a plane. Finally finding the right answer, I tapped a worn shoe against the cement, muttering a shaky explanation.

"Uh...That first month was...pretty bad. Thought this tour thing would take my mind off it, give me some time alone away from everything. I'm out in the middle of nowhere boxing wise, nothing but resorts and tourist traps around here, but I still get people recognizing me."

Losing interest in the star that was now changing course and banking left at a snails pace, I couldn't help but curl my legs closer to my chest. I'd since changed clothes in the room. I'd pulled on some ancient cross-trainers that were too beaten to be considered gym shoes underneath some somewhat intact jeans with the cuffs frayed and dragging. Ignoring the fifty degrees on the digital thermometer mounted near my right shoulder, I was wearing a faded tee shirt underneath an extra-thick hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off in jagged lines right at the shoulder seam. My right hand was hidden away in the front pocket of the sweatshirt while my left awkwardly curled around to my right side holding my phone.

Settling my eyes on the wear-marks on my denim-clad knees, I coldly remarked.

"...Had some old drunk call me washed up at a gala. I just walked away, and I'm sick of it. I'm not fighting again, but I just can't leave everything behind like this."

Grimacing slightly, I finished.

"I need to get back to the gym. I'm done hiding out."

A well-meaning but poorly thought out string of noises from the speaker...I kept my eyes on my knees and shot back.

"He would have liked a lot of things, Aron. Not like he cares now."

A few minutes of on-the-spot trip planning later, we cut the line so he could get some sleep. I would have done the same, I really wanted to. I'd been lying in bed for two hours before I had to run out and call Aron to keep from losing it. Even after running up and down ten stories of steps twice to find a place to call, I still wasn't ready to sleep. I was just too tired to sleep.

Shoving the phone into my front pocket, I crossed my hands as I gently tapped my head against the water meter that acted as the highest point of the entire resort. Still running through flight times in my head, I found myself casually replaying a few select quotes. I whispered.

"_...And everything will go back to normal..."_

Indulging in one slow blink for effect, I stiffly removed my right hand from the pocket and stretched it out with my palm facing out. I professionally scrutinized the layers of dried brown blood streaking down from the knuckles to my wrist. I could even make out where Sam had tried to wrap gauze around it by the way the dried material had cracked in places.

Flexing the fingers once before forming a large, experienced fist, I took out the other hand and went to work scratching the dark scabs forming across the line of knuckles. A second of harsh scraping later, I was down to the skin underneath it.

With no emotion what so ever, I brought my stained hand closer and examined the mountain range of callused skin I'd uncovered. Where there was before a series of jagged slice and puncture wounds characteristic of glass shattering on impact...There was nothing but unbroken skin, not even a paper cut. The blood was still there, it'd been hiding the wounds that had mysteriously stopped hurting while I was tossing and turning back in my room.

Stretching out the fingers of the completely healed hand, I rubbed it against my jeans to try and clean it a bit more as if I was just rubbing off dirt.

"Yeah...That's really normal, Sam."

Letting my eyes settle on a distant spotlight hanging over the hotel's entrance,my mind once again played through an ordered series of images that had yet to be explained or forgotten.

The open door to the basement and the darkness behind it.

That bright green light and the unearthly pain that came with it.

Sam's face hanging over mine...The fear in her eyes.

That figure staring me down at the top of the steps. Inside the mirror.

A wall of broken glass. Every cutting edge twinkling. The cold chill of all of them passing through my skin without making a scratch.

An inhuman freak telling me that he knew I was dead.

The cuts on my hand, bleeding blood that wasn't mine.

The way Sam couldn't look at me. Sam's silence. Sam's denial. Sam's pain.

The green eyes that never stopped staring right through me. Everywhere I looked, everywhere I went, those eyes cutting through everything in this world that could hide me.

"_...Just a physical change...No powers...I'm still human..."_

I didn't need to look at my hand again. I'd seen the truth.

Feeling my eyes lock into a glare, I argued to myself.

"_...Once I change back...Just like I was before..."_

She didn't lie. I changed back, and I'm exactly as I was before. It wasn't a real change, just like she said, it was just a physical one.

I was not human. I just looked like one. I could fake it. Oh, I could fake it forever if I have to, like Sam wants me to. I could never mention it again, block it out, bury myself back in boxing and see all my old friends again, just like I was still human. Who cares what I feel in my very bones every second of every minute, I can fake it.

Whatever I am...Whatever Danny was...It can kill me if I don't hold it back. Hold it back from what, I don't know. It can never show itself, and I have to keep it like that for the rest of my life.

I slammed my eyes shut, falling against my knees and clutching both hands against the sides of my head as if to stop hearing my own thoughts.

Before giving up and letting myself drift off to a tense sleep, I gritted my jaw and asked myself the question no one would answer.

I hated to say it, but at this point it was all I had left to ask.  
"_Why me?"_

_Author's Notes_

Anyone reading this for the first time should know, this is an extreme overhaul of the original first chapter. The following ones will probably be complete, worthless garbage by comparison, and are left over from the original, much less drama-based version which was more of a low-effort spoof. Later on, I grew more attached to this work and took a much more serious, much more dedicated approach to how it was written. Do me a favor, give me a while before reading on after this, I plan to redo most of the earlier chapters to match the later ones. Until then, thank you for reading, and I apologize for the unforgivable hiatus I put you guys through update wise. Again, thank you and sorry.


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any series or concept mentioned within this work of recreational fiction.

NOTES: Currently working on how to replace the earliest 'I got bored' chapters with more serious content, this second chapter should set the tone. I may never get forgiven for dropping off the radar like I did, but here's fourteen thousand words that were compiled throughout my absence. I never really gave up on this, I just went from a very bored stagehand dared to write a fanfiction by his girlfriend, to...Well, I'm writing this from an employer-paid hotel room in New York City, the girlfriend that dared me to write this went from a coffe shop clerk to an executive with a degree, and the then-fourteen year old kid I based Alan off of just ended a three-year feud we've been having concerning his military career. I hate the term 'grew up', but do note I've gone from odd jobs with the time for comedy-action writing, to wearing a suit for court appearances. Most of these chapters will remain untouched for what they are, but going so far in life has me adding to this as much as I can, because you guys did enjoy this. I owe the readers after all this disappointment.

3 Months Later

"ALAAAAAN!"

...When did my alarm clock start sounding so nasally? I was welcomed to the waking world by a cramp running down my right side, a numb bit of skin where my face had touched the old boards, and a sibling's voice ringing out. I pushed an elbow out, slumping onto my back heavily.

"What...?"

I wasn't sure which one it was, didn't really matter.

"Your alarm clock kept making noises! I tried making it stop, but Mom has to get us to school. It's still...bzzz...ing."

...Kerri. She tended to use sound effects instead of words. If they weren't in the same classes with the same homework, the twins could have been in different grade levels. Since Kerri had qualified to skip grades, this girl who couldn't turn off an alarm clock would soon be graduating high school at age sixteen, going on seventeen. I was nineteen, going on twenty, and lying in the loft of an old barn because I had no reason to get up early today, my first appointment wasn't until eleven. A shaft of sunlight burned my eyes as I assured her.

"I'll turn it off..."

A heavy slam. I sat up stiffly, looking down off the ledge to see the dust shaking off the large door she'd managed to creak open. No pleasantries or goodbyes, nothing new. I turned around to look at the pile of tattered books I'd spread across the worn floorboards of the loft the night before. I pushed the one I'd been reading aside and stacked off to the side away from the glassless window. A quick slide down the ladder later, I wandered through the rows of beams and square pillars and the occasionally patched cloth bag cluttering the ground floor of the barn. Most of them were modern particle blends to supplement the collapsing beams, but a few of the original Amish foundation pillars were still standing. I stopped by one such pillar that had a dust-coated mirror on it and took a look at my gritty reflection.

I'd hacked off a few inches myself to keep the bangs out of my eyes, but for the most part it still looked as unkept and haggard as it had for the last few months. I ran my fingers through it to count as having combed it, adjusted the tee shirt and faded jeans I'd fallen asleep in, and was ready for my day. On my way out, I glanced over a folding table covered in swollen gloves and cloth strips. I stared at a layer of dust forming on a black pair of gloves before wincing off into the bright sunlight of the morning.

Across from the stoic old barn, stood a structure completely against everything it stood for. Supposedly it had once been a grand old farmhouse that had functioned as a bed and breakfast for a few decades. Then, the Fentons got to it. A pointless promenade balcony encircled half the third floor, a stainless steel rooster slowly swiveled on the steeple rooftop, shimmering white paint encased every bit of wall and trim, and every tasteful old quirk the house could offer was gutted for a high-tech vent, antenna, dish, or occasionally a shooting stand affixed to a windowsill. Glancing over my shoulder at the retreating barn, I made a note to wash the grime off the unpainted wood if I ever got that bored.

I pushed in the swinging screen door they kept around for 'charm', scuffing my shoes along the wood floor of the living room they kept filled with country-ish decorations from a catalog. Somewhere in the nearby kitchen I could hear my father talking on his ear-set. Something about product royalties. He only talked about them in conference calls, he never liked to mention the trademarked technologies that paid for the house and all the luxuries. He hadn't actually invented any of them. My great-grandparents had enough clout in NASA that a moon lander featured Jack Fenton's face on the side of it. As featured in my grade school history book. The royalties from all these tricks and gadgets paid for this house, and the several hundred grand they spent destroying it with the bacterial fashion sense they have. I glared at a family portrait along the staircase as I went by. Four grinning faces, and color coded jumpsuits.

The second floor featured the master bedroom, main office slash laboratory, and my sisters' connected bedrooms plus an extra guest room. I stepped to the side of the rather narrow hallway as a black-rooted brunette who stood proudly at the level of my chest marched up with a designer school satchel. The spark in her blue-lensed eyes gave her away before the clear dialect did.

"I turned off your alarm."

Sherri. Cold, distant, measured...She was our mother's daughter. I attempted to thank her with a nod as she passed by, then stayed in place as Kerri went by, identical except for a vacant stare and a distinct lack of grace in her step. They never told her it kept her off the varsity squad like Sherri, they said something about schedules and branching out.

"Your barn smells old."

...Another nod, and off she went to follow her sister to school and to their future in general. All the tutors and trainers noted something was off with Kerri, but seeing as she kept up loosely with her sister the over-achiever, no doctors of specialists were contacted. None of us talk much, so it's not my place to say anything. I never bothered framing my GED certificate. Criticizing the daughter that's graduating early with honors is over my head. Nice girl, just a bit confused.

Barely an inch taller than the twins, my mother floated by with a freshly charged ear-set glowing like a radioactive earring, snarling about promotional footage to a faceless agent as she headed down to drop off the girls before settling into her home office. Unlike the girls who needed a touch-up, she was dyed to the core, with a set of blue eyes her surgeon could have put in the information pamphlet. Since I was out of her way, she didn't bother looking at me. And vice versa.

I finally reached the third floor about the time the other three were through the front door to pick a vehicle for the day. The house tapered as it went up, the third floor consisted of three bedroom sets, and a promenade deck we never actually promenaded on. Only thing on the fourth floor was a library. I don't think anyone actually knew there was a library up there, I only found that out a few years ago. Immediately next to the stairway was the bedroom I hadn't slept in. Two of the walls featured cheap fight posters I'd been painstakingly pasting over the paint to kill time, a few more weeks and I'd have two walls of posters I'd accumulated over the years. Dozens of faces, all staring inward at each other and advertising some championship of some kind. Mostly middles and bantams, no heavies.

Sitting down on my gray comforter, I reached over and rubbed the side of the only person in the house who'd noticed I'd been gone last night. He flicked an ear and growled to himself as I brushed off his pure-white coat. Frost was a rare breed of Husky, all white. When we'd bought him, he was trained with a set of German code words for attack movements. He was the mascot for our supernaturally based tactical team.

...We forgot all the code words, years of bad training later he just takes over unused furniture and stares at you pathetically whenever you're eating. I patted his notable stomach a bit before letting him drift back to sleep in the middle of my bed, he wouldn't want a walk until noon. I squinted at the large-font headlines scrolling across my desk screen, mouthing each word before asking the dog.

"...Think I'll get any takers?"

Silence except for canine breathing and a distant car on a gravel road. All this renovation, and we'd never replaced the gravel driveway that led out to this secluded farmhouse. I replied.

"Well, with news like this, they should throw me something for even showing up."

SECURITY...FORCES...FAILING...QUO...Dangit...Okay, they're failing something. Giving up, I commanded the screen to play the story. The text blocks were replaced with a video footage with sound, showing a reporter in a jabbering crowd.

"Here we have bystanders reacting to yet another violent crime, this time an armed robbery, that had occurred within city boundaries since the city has delegated law enforcement to a a privately funded service group. With more and more traditional police departments being disbanded, corporately owned contracts have become common in larger American cities."

...So have crime sprees, loose ends, mishandling of crime scenes, and wasted funding. The reporter continued, ignoring a trihawked noncomformist staring at the camera behind him.

"...Which makes cases such as these a time for speculation. Has this recent increase in crime a result of different viewpoints following the appointment of private security officers? Or has the appointment of these 'pay-cops' resulted in inefficient law enforcement which has left the city vulnerable to opportunist criminals?"

...The guy two channels away doing a story about how these morons in uniforms spent time delegating incidents throughout the force, while the crime is still occurring. He had hidden camera footage. And some one with a blurred face. Get the blurry face guy, he knew what was up.

"With two dead following a robbery in a zone surrounded by private security routes...Residents are speaking out, and demanding a return of the blues and badges of the police departments shrinking out of existence."

I grimly smirked at the screen, turned to the comatose dog and sighing.

"...Sounds like they need all the help they can get."

Four Hours Later

He adjusted his tie inside his jacket before bluntly handing the sheet back to me.

"We require an associates degree just for consideration."

I noticed that the officer doing the interview had no actual educational degrees hanging behind his desk, but I still thanked him on my way out.

Two hours later

After a half hour of smiling small-talk and interested questioning, I was given the nicest, most compassionate answer so far. He was with an uptown department, he wore his full service blues and holsters even though he'd probably been behind that desk for quite some time. Round face. Round body. Everything was creased and polished, including his answer following his review of my application.

"...We'd be happy to have you on the force, once you further your education. You're a good boy, it is good that you want to be a police officer."

Across the desk, I tried to fight my eyebrow back down.

"Sir. I...didn't go out of my way to mention this, but I'm...not..."

The blank smile and sympathetic eyes convinced me to just stop trying. He pitied the mentally handicapped, how was I supposed to tell him off without hating myself afterwards.

One hour Later

"...Answer the question."

I rubbed my neck, feeling drops of sweat beading down it. It was too cold in the room to even need air conditioning, a chilly May day that had both myself and the recruiting sergeant wearing light jackets.

"I...have a GED."

I wasn't getting by with this one. He wasn't going out of his way to be a jerk, his green eyes showed some sign of compassion among all the blunt analysis. He had a gruff accent, a beat cop at heart. He just picked up the paperwork because he'd had to, and now it came to this.

"You cannot read the sentence the clerk wrote on your application."

I somehow managed to maintain eye contact.

"I...just can't read cursive..."

He started rubbing his forehead, and I took the chance to lean back in my chair to try and breathe easier. He grumbled under his breath.

"You gotta' be kidding me..."

About ten minutes before this, he had asked me to shake his hand. He still had a program in his bag, I signed it for him. Now he was realizing the only cursive letters I knew were in my autograph signature, and that according to my educational records, I'd been functionally illiterate until a few years ago.

He shook my hand again before I left. He handled it well. He not only turned down a complete moron from applying for the police academy through his department, he also found out his favorite heavyweight title holder can't sound out the ingredients on a cereal box. I spent the next few minutes thanking him for his time, he was still rubbing his forehead when I closed the door behind me.

I ended up in the bathroom, airing out the now soaked polo shirt I'd worn under my jacket and rubbing cold water on my face to try and get rid of the blush that hung around. I had to hunch over to get to the faucet, was the tallest person I'd seen in the building, had been asked to flex a bicep after he'd gotten my autograph. Looking in the mirror as the water dripped off, I realized how much the polo shirt revealed about me. My arms looked out of proportion to my slimmer torso, which tapered down to a pair of legs that never did catch up with my upper body. They see an Olympic level athlete, I saw a pair of chicken legs and gawky proportions that made buying fitted clothes hard. I decided to blame it all on the shirt.

I'd only bought the shirt because I'd been told I needed a collar for interviews. A few months before, dressing for an interview meant getting my hair spiked and calling a sponsor about which logo to wear if they took pictures. Now it meant being mistaken for a special education case.

Finally drying the cursed shirt out and putting my jacket back on, I was now walking back through the bustling main floor of the police department. I stopped off to the of a cubicle and watched silently as a dispatcher called out codes, resulting in a scramble for a parking bay as two plain clothes officers shrugged jackets over their holsters. As they ran by me with badges swinging around their necks, I couldn't help but step back, even though they had plenty of room to get by. If one of them had made eye contact, I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd started stuttering and said something idiotic. I hadn't said it to any of the interviews that day, but becoming a beat officer wasn't my actual career objective.

...I wanted to be the guy in the cheap gray suit who honored me by bracing himself against my shoulder as he made a sharp turn around the cubicle. After they plowed through four other people to get out, I was still staring down after them. A rough impact on my shoulder sounded off in my ear before I felt it, the next instant I was turned around at the waist with a forearm out to block whatever was coming. The rush was quickly extuinguished by the amused grin of the gray-haired, wrinkle-framed little man who had patted me on the arm to get my attention. Before I could start apologizing like the uncivilizied twitch I was, he was laughing up at me. He couldn't have been more than fix six, my forearm was about to knock his head three cubicles over. He hadn't even ducked. He just...laughed?

"...Rod's boy, am I right?"

I was giving a nervous smile to a nearby officer who had his hand on his belt, crouching at me as if I'd...tried to attack some one...He noticed the fact my would-be victim found my hilarious, so he slowly relaxed and walked away, looking at me over his shoulder. I then realized he'd asked me question, straightening out my posture before looking back down at him.

"Huh?"

Another raspy chuckle. He had a thick gray goutee covering a double chin, and two dark pebbles for eyes under a bushy set of eyebrows pushing into each other.

"I said...I think I know your uncle."

Oh, great...

"You knew...Detective Rodriguez...?"

A gray caterpillar curled up at me.

"...The old Amigo with all the bullet holes? We called him 'Rod'. He mentioned a...cunning nephew fitting your description the last time we got together."

...Did he actually mention 'cunning nephew', or did he just go on about how his wife's sister is shacking up with a white guy and blocking out the fact her children are one-quarter Cuban? I'm sure he mentions me somewhere in all that, but he really does like making fun of my mother. Does a great impersonation of her, still not sure where he found that wig. Relaxing a bit, I sighed.

"Yeah, that's him...I get to tell him I got turned down by four departments today."

He'd been going to check his watch, but ended up staring halfway between my face and his wrist. His head ratcheted back up, his eyes flashing. I couldn't guess his nationality...He could be mixed, or he could just have a tan. I'm a paint sample strip darker than my father, but I'd never been called anything but 'white'. Whatever this guy was and whoever he was, his temper showed through.

"...And now the city will hire four goddamn contractors! Every time a beat cop quits, we get a car full of paycheck-counting kids in helmets!"

This was the...forty third time I'd heard a cop mention the helmets the security contractors wore. Their corporate center spent more funding on their supply contracts than recruiting, resulting in a lot of poorly trained officers wearing a ridiculous knock-off of the armor-sets the military used to use. The full-faced helmets and plates made sense for air drops into the mountains, they were cheap and plentiful enough to repaint with blue and white color schemes and issue out to the grunts the company hired. Back in the 30s some departments experimented with the same gear, but in the end cops went back to uniforms and vests to be able to actually catch a runner. Except for some riot gear I saw on a shelf, this department could have been from the twentieth century, everything was so old fashioned. The noble dwarf of a man went on, holding back some profanity this time.

"Those...jerks. They push us off the streets and keep us around for investigations, the detectives are the only real cops left."

"...I know. Uncle Carlos talked me out of applying with them after the Marines turned me down."

He cut his rant short as he actually processed what I'd tried telling him. He tilted himself to the side, trying to spot any injuries or defects.

"...Even the Marines? You look healthier than a horse I'd bet on, what they got on you?"

I had to rub my neck a bit, a tic I'd been fighting off for years.

"Ehh...A learning disability and no degree."

He waved this off, shaking his head. Turns out he wasn't shaking it about the obvious.

"...You'll get one. Then you'll come back, and they'll make me retire so you can have my office."

Just as suddenly as he'd popped up, he saw his watch and was now walking away briskly towards the same parking bay the others had run to. He still got the last word in over his shoulder.

"Say hi to your Uncle Carlos for me! You'll be back, you'll see!"

And out he went, off to whatever case sent them running like that. And there I was, standing around next to a filing cabinet, with no credentials or loopholes to join any organization that I believed in. I'd already failed an entry exam for community college. I'd been to nearly every department in the city limits and a few local ones I could catch the commuter train to, this was a pretty routine day for me.

Two Hours Later

I had to reach up to wipe my eyes. I hadn't laughed as far as I could remember, but Sam's story had just torn my sides open. I was sprawled over the side of the double-wide train seat, using my jacket to wipe my face off as the middle-aged light-skinned African in a formal jacket with the name of the train line across the chest finished the story frankly.

"...And the weirdest thing is...The mattress was gone before morning. Some one actually stole the mattress, but not the TV."

I snorted, finally managing to breath. He finished adjusting his hair before replacing the conductor's hat across his brow. I'd caught an earlier train back out to the boondocks, the same train I'd been taking just about every day for seven years. The stories got less and less appropriate as the years went by, especially when the train car was nearly empty as it was then. He was sitting in the seat across from me, having a gap between stops and having nothing else to do. As I got myself sitting upright again, he changed the topic without any real pause or reason.

"...You really just gave it up?"

I was still in a good enough mood from the TV surviving the five story drop, that I tried to be polite about it.

"Got back from that tour with the Fentons, started looking for a real job. Still hitting the gym on my off days, not much else to do."

He didn't hide how much his eyes rolled. Six years ago, I was a featherweight who couldn't reach the luggage rack, he never wasted time trying to see me as anything different.

"...With the Fentons, 'Fent? Really? Why would you be on a tour with the enigmatic Fenton Family, Alan Fenton?"

He leaned forward, burning me with a stare he practiced for chewing out his kids. I smoldered back, the friendliness growing colder. He saw the dead end ahead of him, and waved off everything with another trademark topic switch.

"Speaking of crap I don't believe...You hear about that thing downtown the other night?"

I shook my head, glancing out the window at the budding cornfields flicking by. He began glancing around, trying to find the memory inside his head.

"Some weird police scanner talk...Some contractors were called out to handle some disturbance in the old shopping district, where they have that restaurant with the two bars? They had some...I think they were Byters."

I nodded, lowering my brow a bit. Byters were a bit of a fad that wasn't going away. Neon hair, goggles, skin dyes, some cheesy clubs with imported music. I'd...technically talked to a couple, and they weren't really doing any harm. They were Byters, I was a 'Trad' or whatever they called us, no real gap except for interests and fashion tastes. Rarely heard of them getting into much trouble, mostly college kids looking for a niche. Sam's hands were now waving a bit as he tried to get the words out.

"The Helmets, for whatever reason...fired. Not sure why, but shots fired, live steel, no stuns or shocks."

The side of my fist rang out against the fake leather seat. He nodded in agreement, but didn't stop there.

"...And they blew their first magazines by the time these thugs started wailing on them."

He smiled to himself as he watched the blood drain from my face, finally getting some signs of humanity out of me. He went on, slower, more carefully. He'd rehearsed this, he just wanted to walk me into that. He crossed his arms, leaning back into the seat prophetically.

"Three fully armored Helmets, fired everything they had at a group of Byters trashing a club. These Byters just stood there, then walked up and beat these kids bloody. Uptown got called in...Only blood on the scene was from the Helmets. They weren't wearing armor, the rounds were real steel, but these guys stood and took it."

I went to talk...Had to stop and summon up some saliva, for some reason my mouth had become a desert.

"...My uncle took a few magazines, he was still running around until shock kicked in. Then the coma. These guys may have just been on something."

A dark finger reached up and impaled any argument I had.

"Your uncle also lost more blood than a stuck pick, these guys weren't even sweating. They found all the bullets in the walls, couple bystanders are being treated, but nobody died. And ten rounds per magazine...Some one was supposed to die, weren't they?"

I didn't realize how loud I was getting until I heard my voice echoing in the car. I saw a quiet couple on the upper deck staring, but that didn't register.

"What'd they look like?"

He shrugged, reeling the one hand back in.

"You know how they are. Lot of painted skin showing, sunglasses at night, that glow in the dark stuff that lights up in the clubs..If they had coats on they could have been armored, but these guys had on skimpy little..."

"-What color where they?"

He stared for a second before laughing a little, slowing exposing his teeth as he looked down at his wrist under his cuff. I'd seen Byters in mostly neon traditional colors, rarely more than one because of how the paint smeared. I kept trying to picture orange, yellows...They couldn't have been...

"Well, I'm a stained oak finish...You're about as white as that wheat out there...But you know those Byters. Pink, blue, ora-"

"_Green?" _

He went from smiling, to wondering what the heck had gotten into me. He closed his smile, nodding a bit. I stared at his eyes, only his eyes. The only signs I was on a bustling train were the vibrations, the hum of the engine...The damp smell of an alley...No, no, not that again...

"Yeah...I suppose they could have been..."

As the pictures of these faceless figures took on the neon green that glowed under the club lights...My mind's eye focused on their faces. Glasses, on a nub of a nose that really wasn't a nose...No hair, just spikes that looked like it. I pictured one reaching up to adjust his glasses, smirking...Then there was just the head, spiraling through the air, landing at my feet. Glaring up at me with glassy eyes...Then rearing back to scream curses at me without vocal cords or a neck to breathe with.

I was now on my feet, blood rushing, rushing down the isle to the exitways.

"I...need to make a call!"

As soon as the doors shut behind me, I slunk off to the side, pressing against the closed doors as the fields flew past through the plexiglass window. I pulled out my phone to use as a distraction, before slamming the back of my head into the window, my eyes shutting on impact. Nothing but pain, a sharp warmth on the back of my head...Another flash of green went through my mind, and I just twisted my head around a bit like I was shaking off an insect. I twisted myself around, pressing my forehead into the cold plastic, trying to focus. I was hundreds of miles away, in a city no one really cared about, sleeping in a town no one had ever heard of...They were in shock. Entry wounds don't bleed as much, they were just in shock.

I opened my eyes, looking into a blurred reflection of myself, pale and pathetic, superimposed over cornfields and farmhouses at dusk. I stared into the blue discs staring back at me...Finally relaxing a little. I repositioned myself against the side wall as the train slowed to a stop. The doors opened automatically, the couple from the upper deck clambered down and went by me without looking in my direction. I glanced around the corner I'd come from and noticed James was gone. Had the whole train to look over, probably wanted me to cool off. I turned back around to lean on my half of a wall, and then straightened up again. What the...

Apparently not as empty a train as I'd thought. Walking down from the other side of the car, the doors to the car-link sliding shut behind them, was a group of about four...ehh...kid-agers, probably high school age. They all seemed to have a bit too much meat on their bones, sported the standard buzz cut, and had mismatched fake gold and silver necklaces and bracelets dangling off their disproportionate limbs. They were...swaggering. Rocking side to side, glancing around at the empty car...smiling...Here we go. Let's hear the opening line of this two-act production.

"'Sup, my friend!"

The speaker was the one standing on the far right, walking in front of the others as he flashed me a wide smile, narrowing his eyes. The walk got more pronounced as he swung two clubbed hands off to his sides.

"How about these ticket prices...Real rip-off, know what I'm saying?"

I kept my back against the wall, shifting my foot from against my ankle back down to the floor. I let a sigh slip out to myself, managing not to give anything away as they came through the doorway and filled the exit bay. Four of them. All padded in sweatshirts, coats, and chains. Range of complexions, closer-knit features, all of them with the laces on their left shoes undone with silver laces. Silver was usually the Creed, but they never bothered with the right-left game. Wannabes? An offshoot? I finished my scan and nodded, being civil.

"Yeah, the city budget screwed us. We're paying for the new tracks every ticket."

He stepped up closer, his friends blocked the door behind him. One slowly shuffled over to my left side, towards the other exit. I glanced over at the one nearing my side, making eye contact. He quickly glanced away, back at the shortest one who was edging closer to me, still smiling. Typical. Talked his friends into it, he must have gotten the short straw. One of them was about six foot, the rest were average. Strength in numbers...or was that stupidity, never was good with metaphors. The biggest one had to come the closest, except for the talker.

"Yeah, man...We can't afford the tickets, been dodging the guy all the way from downtown. You got a ticket?"

I started.

"Well, I have a ten ride, save..."

...Oh, why bother.

"....I don't have cash on me. You just chose a target in a patrolled area, moving sixty miles away from where you actually live and shop. Pending you do actually have somewhere to stay out in the country, you'll stand out enough that my incident report will catch you on your way back to the city."

His eyes shot open, showing a network of veins and discoloring around the iris. Allergies, or possibly too little sunlight...I shook that off and went on, rolling my eyes as they stared in at me with dumbfounded silence.

"This whole plan...Please tell me you just got bored. You could have at least went for some one with luggage and valuables, but you go for the commuter. A commuter who takes the train enough that he'd spot you again. You're not even wearing hats, I got all your mugs down before you got through that door."

I was tired. I would have played along, but...don't you just hate those long train rides? I felt myself smiling slowly.

The talker was now staring with a mild eye twitch as he processed everything I said. His hands stayed close to his side, his friends stood back waiting for a signal or...even just an explanation. I nodded towards the door.

"Nice effort, but save yourself the time. I'm not in the mood, you're not up to the job, and..."

The sleeve of his jacket flapped. By the time I saw the five inch blade he'd been hiding underneath it for the last few seconds, he was slamming it through my stomach with his entire bodyweight behind it. His friends winced at the sharp thud that followed, my bitter rant ended with a choking gasp. My eyes went dull, my breathing shallow, the shock taking over. He stood there, panting from the effort as he held the blade in, curling his lip back. Without a word, his other hand reached up for my pockets, feeling for a wallet in the front before reaching around to check the back. All I could feel was the warm steel through my flesh as his thick fingers felt the square indentation in my back pocket, turning to smile at his friends. The curled lip grew into a smirk. The one closest to us on my left was going pale, something between horror and admiration. I twitched up against the wall, struggling to breathe. His hand got into my pocket, reaching down...

...His head whipped back around as he felt my fingers close around his wrist. Just in time for his roast-sized palm as I whipped it directly into his nose and cheek. He yelped something in surpise, squnting to see what happened...only for another smack a second later. And another. And another...

His posse had jumped back a few feet, all of them twitching visibly at the sight. Their leader, his knife still buried through my stomach all the way into my shirt...was being repeatedly smacked with his own hand by an impaled stabbing victim who had gone from gasping and whimpering to looking very, very annoyed. About five smacks in, I pushed off the wall and scooted closer to him. The one closest to us had to point behind us, one of the others jumped over to look. There was the knife, still in its owner's white-knuckle grip, embedded in the carpet-covered wall of the exit bay. The top fingers of his grip were visibly sticking out of my back, he was reaching all the way through my midsection. No blood, no torn fabric...Just reaching right through me. I stopped smacking him for a couple seconds, enough time for him to look down and see his elbow disapearing into my ribcage.

I cleared my throat, all the gasping hurt my tonsils. As I resumed happy-slapping him, I gave him his options in the same casual, measured tone I'd been speaking in a few seconds before.

"Let go of the knife...and stop hitting yourself. Your friends are watching, pull yourself together."

He let out a high-pitched expletive, quickly muffled by another slap. He'd been wearing a ring I hadn't noticed, it left a few cuts along his nose and eyelid. The corner of my eye caught a shadow zooming at me from my left, I leaned to my right and let fly with an elbow behind me. I made solid contact into his side, slamming him into the immediate metal wall...and right through it. The usual echoing slam was replaced with a muffled thud as he landed in a heap behind the closed sliding doors, he was in the seating area I'd just walked out of. I used my momentum to give the leader a heartier slap with the back of his hand, looking up at his friends to beam at them with a cocked eyebrow.

I felt an odd tingling sensation as his hand released, making him fall back as his arm fell out of me. I kept a grip on his other hand, lifting it over his head before somewhat awkwardly sending my left fist into his underarm. His scream assured me that I'd made rotator cuff contact. The far doorway opened, two of his comrades took off barreling down to the car-link they'd came from. Leaning back to brace myself on the wall, I let go of his arm. As he tried to bring it down to protect himself, my shoe buried itself in his stomach, followed by the warm embrace of the metal wall directly behind him. He crumpled onto the three stairs leading down to the exterior doorway.

I looked over and saw the corner of a shoulder through the plastic window in the doorway to my left. Sliding over in front of it, there was the biggest one back on his feet and hitting the button to open the door. I threw a high right through the double doors, making contact with his jaw and sending him falling back for the second time. I stood there with my right arm stretched out through the metal doors, watching as they clicked and slid off to the sides. If I had to describe it, it felt...kind of like a dental procedure. Cold metal and bolts moving through your nerve endings, but with enough pain killer it just felt uncomfortable rather than painful. I looked down at him, glancing between the one stretched out in front of me and the one crumpled behind me in the corner. Assured they were both staying down, I shook off the pain in my left elbow before turning and walking through the exitway to the other doorway As I passed by the wall I'd been leaning against, I reached over and used my elbow to pry the one-piece knife out of the siding, dropping it into a loose pocket inside my jacket. Stopping at the quiet, but breathing and grumbling leader, I looked down and shook my head. I raised a finger to lecture.

"..."

I gave up, shaking my head again as I paced off into the other sitting area.

"...Sorry, lost my train of thought."

I eventually ended up walking through the noisy car-link, hanging around a minute between the doors as I tried to get back to what I was doing. Stepping off into the next car, I patted the awkward bulge in my jacket as I mouthed the problem to myself.

"...Right into the walls...no blood..."

_...And they just kept on coming..._

A nearby wall screen told me we were still two stops away, I had time. I found a relatively occupied car with about ten scattered passengers, climbing up into the upper deck and taking a window seat. I discretely looked into my pocket and eyed the chipped black paint covering the flea market special I'd pulled out of the wall. I noticed a series of holes drilled through the handle. Some kind of brass knuckle deal...one hole was common on most defensive knives, makes it impossible to drop the knife if you have a finger through it. This one had five, he'd had all his fingers stuck inside it after he'd stabbed me. No wonder it took him so long, he may have pulled a couple out of the socket. Dropping my jacket back onto my chest, I busied myself with the view outside the window. Kids. Just...stupid kids. The one had issues that made him enjoy it, and would end up in a cell eventually. The others might have just been along for the ride. All it takes is one.

_Once you change back physically, you'll be just like you were before._

_..._Yeah, that worked. I hadn't slept more than five hours at a time in the months I'd been home, didn't drift off until two days after that night in Amity Park. Just felt wide awake all hours of the night, had to work myself ragged to get myself to sleep. Took weeks to get used to it, thought it was just an imbalance or a disorder. Well, restless leg syndrome doesn't make you fall through the middle of a floor mid-step. I landed on my mother's desk chair, the thing ended up in more pieces than when it came in that box from the Swedish place. Then I got my arm stuck inside a medicine cabinet mirror when I tried wiping some toothpaste splatter. Ended up breaking it to get it out, the shards sliced up my hand. That next morning, the dozen deep slices looked like old paper cuts. At least the blood was red.

A green flash behind my eyelids. I winced. There it was again.

I'd had to teach myself to control it, too many sudden falls whenever I thought 'I want to go downstairs'. But teaching myself to control the falls and slip-ups also unearthed what trigged them. Plain old will power. No physical effort, just thinking of the object as not being there. I thought of the knife passing through me, and it did. I thought of his wrist as something I wanted to grab, and there it was.

...The big one flying through the wall, however...I was just as surprised as he was. My clothes always phased along with anything I was carrying, but apparently it also worked with a living body. I'm assuming from my pulse and digestive functions I'm still technically living, but unless that moron had walked into the same bug zapper thing, I'm going to assume he was a normal human being. He also only went through the one door, not the floor...It was all related to contact. I'd tried throwing tennis balls through walls, they always just bounced back. Theoretically I could now just push it through...Note to self, get Frost to drop the tennis ball, test theory.

Some one had their phone playing a new story through the speakers. Might have been the same reporter from that morning, they all sounded the same.

"_Among rising crime rates following the shift to security contracting, the latest incidents rise to the occasion. The North-Central PD has released a statement concerning an attack on patrolling security officers the suspects are still at large, believed to be afflicted with multiple gunshot wounds, and both victims and officers are now being treated for blunt trauma damage."_

I poked my head down over the upper ledge, seeing a glowing screen directly below me. The tiny figure at a desk went on with an unrelated people's interest piece. I sat back in my seat, glaring out across the gap at the other row of windows. As the cornfields gave way to streetlights and a few lit businesses. I tried to imagine what the security dispatch explained to the media.

_Uhh...Ya' see, when you shoot some one...a lot...they don't feel it for a while. The...endorphins overpowered them, resulting in our fully armed officers being subdued honorably...did I mention we shot them? We shot them, you can sleep soundly tonight. Vote for another referendum, we need shinier helmets._

North-Central was what the suits called 'Uptown', if they're on the case they'll at least try and throw some logic at it before finding all the dead ends. I suddenly wondered if that's what had the detectives running earlier that afternoon...How much manpower were they throwing at this case? With the patrols handed over to the helmets, they had all the time in the world to handle cases in detail. They were going to try and find these guys.

...Hopefully they have some one with a thermos...

The Next Day

"...Save file. Will you just do it already? Been hearing about this for a month."

I was hunched over my desk-screen, crouched on the chair as I used my fingers to drag colored dots and lines across a digital map. The bottom corner of the screen was a live video feed of a dark shaved head and a pair of puppy dog eyes above a set of shoulders that could tow a small car. I knew he could out-bench me by two plates, but here he was stuttering and rubbing his cheeks again.

"I just...want this to count. Already tried a few restaurants, but she doesn't eat out..."

I flicked a dot off to the side.

"I'd just ask her after she's done working out..."

"...You would propose to a woman on your way out of the gym?"

"I'd also have done it without re-planning and reconsidering it ten times. You could have grown hair by now, just give her the ring, swap out the stone if she acts disappointed, she'll end up sticking it in her eyebrow either way."

A light groan, but he deserved it. This had been a regular schedule, at least half an hour a day of Aron getting cold feet. I'd helped him set up elaborate plans twice, but he kept backing down and wanting it to be personal. I couldn't stand her either way, I'd spent more time listening to these plans than I had speaking with her. I shifted my map to a grid-view, the highways were too distracting and besides the point.

"Fine, I'll try this on my own for a while...What are you doing over there, anyway? Looks like you're trying to squish my head or something."

I glanced over at his square, then back to the rest of the screen. The screen itself was a flat panel built into the desktop itself, my protein shake was sitting on a cutaway view of Alaska. The rest of the fifty one states were spread out to scale, some of which coded with colored dots I'd placed and kept updated for the last month or so. I'd just added a green dot to the Midwestern stretch we were in, right next to the star designating a major city. It was the only dot of its kind for at least two states in every direction. There were a few others, all speckled across the east and west coast, a few random ones in the South, and a few in the North along the border. More common were blue dots scattered nearer to the greens, and a single red dot. Highlighted next to it, stood the words 'Amity Park'. There were three green dots surrounding it, and five blue ones. The only other area with that high concentration was in the central Midwest, in Wisconsin of all places. I forgot Wisconsin even existed until I made this map.

"...I'm trying to find an old picture."

I used two fingers to zoom into the newest green dot. No blues in sight. Blue meant 'Possibly'. Green meant...I hated adding every single green dot, enough said. This last one had been giving me a headache for most of the night before.

"Oh...Hey, what's your family been up to? Haven't been over there in forever, your mom still pimping out that crossbow?"

I decided to give it a rest.

"Save file, close application. Yeah, his name's 'Longinus', she came up with some infared trasers for it. She tried marketing it to a company, they told her that the military has no use for bows and arrows anymore. She doesn't believe it, she's been nailing scarecrows like they were trying to rob us."

Speak of the devil, an echoing _thwack _sounded through my closed window.

"...Really should go pull the arrows out of that poor guy, the neighbor kids are getting freaked out."

A low laugh, he always found this house amusing. Redundant, pointless, a waste of the education he always valued, but amusing. Another arrow whistled through the air outside as I cracked my back against the chair. He snapped his fingers as the screen stretched itself across the rest of the desk, almost life-size.

"Oh...Yeah, Waspy was saying the other night...Yeah, all you ghost geeks are saying there have been like twenty confirmed attacks out of nowhere. All over the place, her mom's like a conspiracy nut with all that."

Once again...speak of the devils...Actually there were seventeen confirmed attacks, and thirty eight suspicious sounding incidents that police and security departments responded to. Seventeen green dots. Thirty eight blue dots. And the one red one that started it all. I raised my eyebrow at him, this was the second time he'd mentioned something like this in the last few weeks. The first time was asking if my parents had mentioned an incident, I proceeded to tell him the same thing I'd told him before.

"We both know the Fentons have a screw loose...Everyone put up with them years back because they were geniuses with something to contribute, everything since then has been a tabloid trap. They get called about these reports all the time, they're waiting for an event with actual media interest."

Fourteen local news networks reported on it, thanks to them I could put up my dots. but no major networks touched it. CNS did have an article collection that was musing on it, but no video coverage that would get broadcast yet. It just wasn't sensational enough. Yet. I only had media reports, for all I knew they missed half of them and they'd advanced into Canada. May every deity protect our syrup supply.

"You...were like _bred_ to hunt ghosts, a few years with us scrappers and now you're an angst-ridden skeptic. Did your sisters buy any of this crap? I never hear them talking like your parents used to..."

"They were raised for photo ops, at some point they got so distracted by the dollar signs and headlines that they kind of forgot about training to exterminate the nonexistent. If I'd stuck with it, they'd have to re-brainwash me all over again."

He was sipping from a college-colors thermos. Black and burgundy, he also had the keychain, the sweater, the shirts...Even the boxer-briefs, which the entire locker room wants to steal and have framed for historical consideration.

"...Did you _ever_ have a chance of turning out normal, Fent'?"

I didn't even bother, way too many comebacks for that. Raised by coyotes, stolen by a clan of inbred moonshiners, tilling machine accident...He pulled on his matching jacket, heading off for class.

"I'm out, Man. Take it easy on these interviews, you're just putting yourself down five days a week."

His screen clicked to black before I could say anything. He had better timing with advice than with his combinations, he spent so many rounds a match hitting into the guy's guard that the announcers used to wonder if he was trying to demonstrate something to the crowd. Now he's an education major, ironically. Twenty two, looking into grad school options...and trying to propose to a twenty six year old pro we met at an exhibition night about eight months ago. I didn't even want to think about it, she'd been moved out here and training at our gym for a month before I came back. They were pretty attached, I didn't mind being pushed out of his schedule so much as...that she _existed. _

I glanced over my desk at the framed screen propped up on the corner. It was currently resting on an old picture of me, with hedgehog spikes for hair, in the trademarked gray trunks and gloves. I was kneeling down next to a kid with a smile wider than his face, holding up a gray glove I'd signed for him. He'd lost his program, and since I'd taken off that glove to hold the marker I just gave him the glove. The handicap seats were ring-side, kid was bouncing in his wheelchair when I jumped the ropes down next to him. Taking a second to look at his face, I reached over and flicked the screen to the side a few times, shuffling through the random picture options. I stopped when it got to the one I'd been reminded of, Aron and me hanging off the ropes of the sparring ring, staring off at something with a similar glare the photographer found memorable.

He had nearly an inch and forty pounds on me, skin color aside we contrasted with two radically different physiques. He was musclebound and fought from one spot, the average heavyweight. I was the underdog of the weight class, only about 215, looked a lot lighter. He'd lost a bit of the bulk since he'd stopped fighting and started school, and his fighting career only managed to make a dent in his student loans financially. Professional boxing was just a new gimmick in the last decade or so, for every serious fighter there were ten little pittbulls just trying to grab a check and some bragging rights before they wash up. Aron was a great guy, he one of my first heavyweight matches, we'd hit it off right away. He was better off in college, I hadn't been honest with him about his fighting style ever since I'd floored him four rounds in.

...And now he wanted my help proposing to the girl. Forgot how much I loved this sport. I slipped my feet down to the floor, getting up and grabbing my keys and other essentials from the edge of my desk, filling my pockets as I tried to read the news ticker. I looked back at the picture frame to see it showing another memory. This one was just beyond words. There was me, age...I remembered making that costume after I turned twelve, I think. I was a stumpy little skeleton with a mess of black hair, dull but panicked eyes, and a straight mouth that hadn't learned to smirk yet. Framed by taller strangers in a thick crowd, I was slouched over in a brown bathrobe over a homemade sand-colored tunic, standing next to a taller, gawkier girl about the same age with a similar outfit. She wasn't as afraid of the camera, grinning with a mouth full of advanced correctional hardware, a tall nose that divided her face in half, except for a mink-like black eyebrow draped over two gigantic dark green eyes that clashed with her natural tan. I had to stop and chuckle a bit to myself....But not about how the girl looked, it wasn't that. It was just...a long time ago.

Before the green dots, before Sam picking me up that night...Hell, it was before I'd ever put on a pair of gloves. I wasn't Rejected Application #6, I wasn't one third of the way towards the world title, I was...a kid in a bathrobe with a flashlight for a laser sword. When you got this far into the bizarre...things like this meant something. I suddenly wished I had more than just that one picture.

That Afternoon

Another rejection for anything they had to offer, including file clerk, janitor, and valet. A twenty minute speech about what degrees and qualifications would escalate me the fastest in an ever-changing law enforcement culture. A fond thanks for my interest and passion for what I wanted to do.

...That was two hours and four cups of coffee ago. The sergeant interviewing me had started off in a full business suit with his badge on his lapel and monogrammed cuff-links. He was now in his dress shirt with the collar and tie undone, one suspender strap slipping down an arm. I had showed up in my constantly washed single polo shirt under one of my leather jackets, but was now wearing his suit jacket, adjusting it over the shoulders where it was cutting off circulation and examining the custom holster he'd bolted into an inside pocket. I was repeatedly locking and unlocking his pistol inside the fitted device, trying to decide whether I liked it or not as he went on, stacking his empty cup into a little pyramid with the others.

"...And the law books still have this little amendment about giving precedence to specialists. We tell the new guys it's for bomb squad...No, my old chief said they worked with ghost hunters back when he was your age."

I snorted, removing the pistol entirely to see if the latch left any marks on the slide. The trigger guard looked a bit scratched, but that may have been from his old holster.

"It was a fad. Fentons got publicity, but I've read about all these other ones that just never caught on. Some were legit, pending the things actually existed...Some were just in it to be something."

He was thin except around the midsection, pale except for the shimmer of his bald streak, but he was a sleeper of an intellectual. He'd held onto my resume after the session, and wanted to talk. We'd been through the weapons I'd trained with as a child-soldier of the supernatural (The title of my memoir if I could ever spell 'memoir' consistently), to the usual rants about security patrols, and now he was trying to convince me that his old sergeants would have considered hiring me for my unique talents. He...admitted I was up a creek resume wise, but he really just wanted an interesting conversation. I tried leaving twice, he kept me right in that chair. He began sifting through some digital papers that had been sitting on his desk-screen, flinging them away as if they'd fly off the desk. He corrected me with one finger as he did this.

"We keep getting some reports that has the big wigs thinking back...The big cities with all the reports are actually trying to dig up ghost hunters, but except for your folks, I don't know any that are still active."

I knew of a few, mostly rivals I wasn't allowed to mention because they could hog our spotlight. Never actually met any of them, they rarely showed up at the same events as us. He continued, finding something in his virtual paper stack.

"This is all off the record, but we're up to two unexplained encounters...The night club got out all over the place, Uptown is up to their necks in it. You just reminded me of it...You live out South, right?"

I nodded, having removed his magazine and examining the feeding mechanism. He really needed to regrease it, I could almost smell the oil buildup.

"Yeah, they lay low out there. I take the train out here to civilization, the twins head off to this academy a couple towns over."

"Bringburg?"

"Yeah, that's the one. I take the Praire Line train, shouldn't have bothered getting a driver's license."

His eyes shot up from the screen, staring into me for a second before flicking back down to his files. He was an extremely intense guy despite his appearance...Whatever I said sparked him into finding what he was looking for.

"That, is just irony. We may have had a ghost attack on that same train line last night. You just missed your destiny, Fenton."

I want to say I'm just good at faking surprise...but if I was just faking it, I wouldn't have let go of his feeding spring so it could ping off to the side, bouncing off a wall and landing somewhere behind the desk. He gave me a nodding smile, still looking down.

"You had to hear it somewhere, sorry for your loss. We had a little hospital call up the general office and tell us that some kids got attacked by something that they claimed wasn't human. They got tested after their report got filed...They weren't exactly clean, but a couple of the sober ones backed up the tweakers. One of them was doped up on some kind of amphetamine, had a bad reaction with the pain killers they gave him."

"I leaned up for a second before getting up, walking around his desk politely to try and find his spring. I got down on the carpet, staring down with twitching eyes as I tried to spot the black spring against the black carpeting.

"So, a junkie says he saw a ghost, his friends say they saw it, too...What, did it jump in front of the car they crashed?"

He didn't seem to mind the fact I'd disassembled his duty weapon, or even the fact I was poking around his side of the desk. He was dragging his finger over the screen intently.

"...More like they got the shit kicked out of them. Scared them enough to want protection. Said they acted in self defense, and after pepper spray didn't work, one of them used a swiss army knife to try and ward him off."

...SWISS ARMY KNIFE? DID HE JUST SAY A SWISS ARMY KNIFE? PEPPER SPRAY! WHAT THE-

"Sounded like your average nutjob, but then some details got red flagged. All the other cases have pretty bizarre setups...This one seemed...off."

THEY WENT TO THE COPS? THEY STAB A GUY AND GO TO THE COPS? THEY TOOK A TESTIMONY AFTER A FAILED DRUG TEST? Hey, I found the spring. HOW COULD A DEPARTMENT TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY?

I was tapped on the back as I stood up, he nodded down at the sheet he'd found. I leaned over to scan it as he went on.

"...See? We had sketches being made until the club forked over some footage. We had some models made off of them this morning, the graphics guy thought we were joking."

Lined up in a grid were five computer generated models in the usual mugshot format. I saw them all the time on old case releases and the news for manhunts, but never like this...It could have been a promotion for a new game coming out. They were all bright green, with features belonging on a cartoon caricature. Distinct skin lines or even lips or eyebrows, just...goblin-looking statues in punk glasses. The heads were various shapes ranging from somewhat normal, to swept back in an alien-like fashion. I could see what he meant with the designer being freaked out, in the photo-detail they resembled horror movie masks. He let me stare for a while before reaching down and flipping the page over, to one he'd kept under it.

"...But now, look at this one from the train."

Instead of a model, this was an old fashioned pen and paper sketch with lines still visible where the artist had drawn the figure of the head. Of course it looked a bit crude and grotesque with the lip and nose size being smaller than average, but it just looked like your average thug. Thick jaw, larger vacant eyes instead of the usual beadier ones, and an unkempt haircut with a long patch of bangs hanging over the side of the forehead. I shifted to the side slightly, catching my reflection in the darker section of the screen next to the paper. I quickly reached up to fan out the single bang as he reached down to trace the features of the sketch.

"...No weird coloring, no freaky deformities...Just a bad description of a guy that looks just like my neighbor, our weapons cage guy, and that quarterback that threw the game last night."

I had to exhale a bit as he laughed a bit.

"If you got hit with a shovel on your way out here, you'd be a suspect. He really does look just like the quarterback, that scruffy look is really catching on with you traditional types. 'Trads', right?"

I made quick work of reassembling his magazine, sliding it back in, replacing the pistol as I shrugged off his jacket. I laid it out over his chair, sidling off towards the door.

"Yeah, good luck with the media keeping this sensible. I have to go get turned down by a state department out of town, nice talking to you."

I remembered my jacket and had to walk back up to the desk, he took the time to shake my hand without looking up from his files.

"Back Atcha'...Stop by if you hear anything you think would help us out, any more incidents and you guys may get called anyway."

I mumbled out some polite form of farewell, before slowly making my way out of a crowded police department while pretending to scratch my forehead to hide my features. The second I was around the corner, I took off jogging through an alley, cursing under my breath every few steps.

One Hour Later

"You're sure about this? How long did it take you to grow it out like that?"

I growled impatiently, he just shrugged and closed the scissors with a crispy slicing sound. I watched something black flick by my eyes, followed by a few more snipping sounds as he kept on going.

"...Sharkie, I asked for a hand, not a flat-iron and scalp massage."

The heavily tattooed and shirtless light-heavy kept on snipping away, he was kneeling on the bench I was sitting to get a better angle. I'd just needed some one else to cut off the bangs without it leaving a weird angle...but apparently I wasn't very aware of his personal life.

"I'm just thinning out the sides, and trying to get rid of this ridge you have in the back. Did you ever bother with a stylist when you got long enough?"

A couple welterweights managed not to laugh as they walked by with bags over their shoulders. Aron appeared in the corner of my eye, crossing his arms over a black tank top as he surveyed the scene with an encouraging grin. He added.

"Yeah...let's add some highlights, and maybe some beads. They'll match those earrings you got when we went out last weekend, you'll look fantastic."

"I will leave an indentation of your reflective head in these cinder blocks."

The snipping stopped soon after, I brushed the hair from my lap into a towel to avoid the drain in the floor. I stood up to look in a mirror hanging at eye-level on the wall, looking over my now visible forehead, lack of sideburns, and a generally smaller and lighter look. I finger-combed it a bit, shaking off some loose hairs.

"...If you need a job with my aunt, she doesn't kind hiring girls with ink."

The mohawked punk with...abnormally adept skill with hair clippers snorted and took the green roll I tossed him for his troubles. I reached over to my jacket, pulling out a new pair of cheap wraparounds I'd bought at a street stand. I scratched off the lens sticker and tried them on in the mirror, bending the sides a bit as I made sure my eyes weren't visible from the front and sides. Aron was now changing his shoes next to me, spraying on deodorant before he pulled on a button-down shirt.

"You got a girl to impress...or did she escape from the bunker in your backyard and they're after you?  
"Just got sick of putting up with that thing in my face...It just grew in that way, too busy to get a real cut."

Hair, check. Eyes, check. Leather jackets are pretty brown wrapper nowadays, won't be wearing them when it warms up, check. I was wearing my polished pair of boots, just wear my trainers or my scuffed ones. I'm not wearing that polo shirt anytime soon, jeans are...jeans, if all they had was that lousy sketch and a testimony under the influence I was in the clear. That quarterback makes my career earnings in a year when they don't even win, he's on his own. I pulled out my phone, a bare-bones communicator with a digital clock, and audio functions. I just needed a watch and a phone, so that's all I bought, turning down the other thousand functions. I had a half hour until the next train left, it was a twenty minute walk, and I wanted something to eat from the snack bar at the station.

Pulling my jacket on, I threw Aron a nod as I walked out through the double doors to the locker room. I was embraced by an overwhelming wave of noise, and an ancient smell of sweat and leather that tends to cling to your clothes on your way out. Some one with a thick accent screamed for a combination, a bell rang from the other direction, plates clanked onto bars, and leather and mock-leather collided with scratchy thuds and swipes. The walls of the main gym were a patchwork of cinder blocks, abandoned insulation and ceiling-height warped windows that threw sunlight down like sprinklers. I passed by a row of medicine balls of various sizes and colors, wordlessly knocking fists with some one whose name I couldn't remember but had been around for the last year. Dangling from a pull-up rack on my other side was an Asian amateur with a fight the next week. Hunched over the water fountain with an elbow on the wall was a professional who couldn't find any fights in his obscure weight class. I could have stared around all day at every fighter in every nook and cranny, but that's like going through an entire family tree.

There was another set of double doors that led right out to the street, but I turned the corner into the little lobby where they had the counter. The Mulatto with distinct eyeglass frames and a toothpick hanging around from his lunch earlier threw me a half-hearted wave as he went through the binder full of dues and costs he hated going through. The lobby was mostly just a collection bay for visitors and reporters who tended to wander in, so we kept them distracted with framed pictures lining the walls. Anywhere you looked, nothing but skin, muscle, and colored polyester. I glanced up near the ceiling where the newest ones were, eventually passing by the one I always looked out for. An emaciated heavyweight, surrounded by corner men and referees, holding up an over-sized metallic belt in each wrapped hand, with another one loosely latched around his gray trunks.

Approximately six steps later, there was another one, a much older picture with dated hairstyles and ring clothes. A much larger, movie star lookalike in a similar ending shot, but with only one belt around his waist, flag-striped with a distinctive globe, anchor and eagle emblem across the buckle. The same symbol graced his bare chest in black ink. The picture only showed the front with his arms raised, but I knew he also had a black and white flag across the left bicep where it usually worn on a uniform...and much, much later, a small squared cross right under his neck on the back.

_I fought with my brothers in my heart, my country on my shoulders, and God close behind me...Always behind me, no matter how fast I got away. I never liked admitting He was there, but he caught up with me in the end..._

A painless twinge went through my jaw, looking back down at the cracked tiles. I adjusted my new glasses one more time before walking out the open doors, leaving both of the pictures behind. I'd asked Ray to take them down, at least one of them. He always just went back to his paperwork and told me to take them down myself if I really wanted to.

...That was the twenty third time I'd looked at them since he'd said that.

It was the tail end of winter, just cold enough to need a thicker jacket on despite the bright sun bouncing off my lenses. Walking down the sidewalk of the old slaughterhouse district with buildings older than our farmhouse, I idly scanned everyone who walked by. Students heading out to the cheaper apartments, workers heading out for their shift, a few uptown types looking for a particular kind of shop or service on this greasier, dustier side of the city. Except for the cluster of skyscrapers in the business district, the city gradually sloped down to these converted warehouses that had been turned into lofts and stores, a patch of the lower class that had managed to sell itself off as trendy to the money flowing down from the skyscrapers. Everyone was relatively well dressed...Well...The occasional mohawk and spikes, but well dressed as in clean and done-up. The shadier types never bothered until night fell, it was a nicer area like that. Across town, you'd get jumped at high noon and the locals wouldn't be surprised.

...Or on a train out to the farms.

...Or heading back from a club because I'd rather walk home than watch Aron's girlfriend pound shots.

...Or wandering around at 2 AM because I knew I just couldn't sleep through the night and didn't what was wrong with...

Or...Dear God, I need a ten step program!

It'd all started the week I got back. Aron cleaned out my locker that he'd been loaning to this 'Wasp' girl that had suddenly shown up, assuming I wasn't coming back. I'd been pretty normal all that week except for not sparring and just working out because it was all I knew how to do. I caught a decent fight night at the old Y, just kids and a few guys trying to get some exposure. It was the on the worse side of town, and I still wasn't talking much, so I went home alone. Made it three blocks before some guy with a broken bike chain asked for my wallet. I just handed it over, acted calm, didn't care about a few bucks and some cards I could cancel over the phone that night. I'd been mugged before, once in New York, couple other times in cities I couldn't remember that clearly, but it'd never really been a big deal. Usually just a guy with nothing left, why would I take it personally. I didn't care.

didn't care when he took the wallet...Then he just laughs and starts walking away. With his back turned. All the way, chain at his side. I went from not caring, to...All of sudden I had him on the ground with that chain knotted around his wrists and ankles, he didn't even know what hit him. I didn't really try to hurt him, I just left him tied up on the sidewalk with my the cash I'd had in my wallet tossed onto his face. It was just a weird, random event, no idea what happened to the guy after I walked off.

Nearly a month later, things were about as normal as an independent film. My insomnia was becoming obviously abnormal as the weeks went by, and I kept blocking out odd events that kept happening to me. Earlier that day, I'd been avoiding my parents as they cleaned the house for a reporter visit...I assumed they were just ignoring me when they found me in the garage. I'd never heard my mother openly curse as much as she did then, or seen them bicker in front of me instead of heading off to where they thought I couldn't hear them. I was shuffling out in confusion when I looked at a chrome bumper on the workbench. There was three of us standing in front of that jeep...and only two reflections. A few seconds after they walked out, I reappeared in the middle of an acute panic attack. Ran off to the train station, ended up at Uncle Carlo's place for a long while, finally just wandering the streets after I told him I was heading home.

I got followed. The guy who charged me from behind went through me, into the wall he'd aimed me into. Never even got a good look at him, just ran off before he got up. I'm still not sure how I ended up back home, not exactly a night I wanted to remember.

Then there was the time...You get the point, these things just...happened. I was just so fed up with it by the time it happened on the train...Why didn't I just play along until some one came along, or call the cops in front of them, anything but...Now some one actually saw it, and it's in the system. They had my description, my commuting method, a loose outline of my face...Any decent detective would already be interviewing the staff that'd been working that shift on that very train. James would get shown that sketch or a similar model. He's a retired salesmen, his old accounts used to revolve around memorizing details, he'd know who it was in a second. I'd save time and tax payer's money by just heading back to that Chief's office and offering my wrists to cuff before telling him who I was.

I kept walking that same old route, not turning or slowing. Not yet. I couldn't run away from this...Didn't mean I had to turn around.

Forty Seven Minutes Later

"...Didn't see a thing?!"

"Didn't see a thing. I just said that twice."

James was in his knee-length coat today, shuffling through ticket stubs like playing cards as we walked along his route down the train. We'd passed through three cars, changing between two conversations depending on how crowded each one was. We'd just switched from his grandson's love of his sister's dresses, to...

"You told a detective you didn't recognize that sketch!"

"I didn't."

I'd grabbed at my hair so many times all the loose strands from Sharkie's salon job had worked their way between my fingernails, and beads of sweat were popping under my clothes.

"You just gave false information to an officer of the law...You can get charged for that, and get dragged in as an accomplice."

We went through a clambering car-link, he waited until I was out through the second door and the car was empty before he stuck the tickets inside the brim of his traditionally shaped cap.

"...An accomplice? Oh, dear...What if my wife and children find out I was an accomplice to a deranged professional boxer who fought back against drug users attempting to do him physical harm."

He looked over his shoulder at me to give a familiar grin, inciting a curse I quickly apologized for before continuing on, gnashing my teeth at the empty seats as we paced down the aisle.

"James...I screwed up! I broke the law, and I'm not going to let you ruin your record backing me up!"

He turned back around, stopping to check a data screen to make sure the train was moving along on time. He was...humming. He took his time answering, still looking at the screen as he pointed off behind us.

"...I saw _that_ the same time some passengers found the punks."

I spun around on one heel...And went silent, finally, as I looked at the narrow gouge carved into the siding of the entranceway. He'd led me all the way back to the scene of the crime. I walked over to it methodically, reaching up to test the depth with a finger. Old habits.

"If they were using a knife to fight you off...Why would you be backed into a corner like that?"

...You wouldn't even have stab marks, they'd be trying to slash at my arms and...Oh...Yeah...I stopped feeling the mark, thinking back to the knife that made it. The knife sitting on the floor next to a dog-eared history book in the loft of the barn. Unless they had a back-up that fit the description they gave, they stated they fought back against a ghost with a knife that got stolen right afterwards. The only physical evidence of it, pointed to a one-sided stabbing of some one who was not advancing, let alone attacking. The entire case unraveled into a complete pile of gibberish as the old conductor clicked his hole punch absentmindedly, looking me over as I felt the wall and listened to its story.

"...You're just a couple miles under the speed limit...But brains aside, you're the fastest white boy I know. You were on them so fast they thought you weren't human. Old buddy of mine called me up when he was on the stuff, said the ceiling fan was a dragon."

There goes their testimony in court...Closer analysis of the case would get it thrown out by anyone who wasn't trying to stir up evidence of something they wanted to believe in. I could see a line of beat cops asking if they should question that homeless guy who claims to be Napolean's ghost after he gives out directions to tourists. He had about the same amount of credibility, and actually knew his way around the public transit system pretty well.

"I'm not going to waste my sweet time in a trial that will just say you were defending yourself...Please tell me you didn't go out and get all dolled up just because of these idiots."

Well...I also kept getting bangs in my cereal, and...UV rays, and...

"...You got some problems, 'Fent. You're a good kid, but these last few months really twisted you up inside. Watched it happen, I don't know who you are anymore."

He walked up beside me where I was still looking into where I'd been stabbed. A large hand curled around my shoulder, squeezing my arm even though I wouldn't turn around.

"...But when I saw what you did...I was pretty proud of you. I never want you to even get an allergy again it scared me that much, but when I came home I was proud of you."

The hand released and slid off. Footsteps behind me, he was headed back down the train. He remembered something, it echoed down to where I was still staring into the gouge.

"He's proud of you. You _know _he is."

The doors slid shut. The sounds became muffled and isolated. I was sealed into the same little cubed entrance area from the night before...but with a new look, a new level of fear pulsing behind my brow, a new revelation about what everyone who put up with me really thought of it all. Twenty four hours ago, I couldn't understand a single bit of all this.

_Always behind me, no matter how fast I got away. I never liked admitting He was there, but he caught up with me in the end..._

My brow tightened, glaring at the mark as if it had whispered that mantra into my ear. As I turned around and slammed my back into it to avoid looking at it anymore, the sudden motion seemed to shake out the rest of the quotation.

..._And this girl who went with me to the shop said it was really deep and meaningful...I still regret it. They warned me it would hurt the most in the middle of the back, but they didn't warn me the girl I was trying to impress would end up telling me to leave the seat down for the next fifty years._

My breath caught short, exhaling in a sharp snort. I felt something loosen up inside my, creaking slowly as the strain was slowly undone. I slid down the wall a few inches, reaching up to rub my eyes as the old joke suddenly removed all the meaning and painful reminders that came with it.

...Didn't actually teach me a thing except that religious tattoos attract nagging wives, but between me not being booked for vigilante assault, a verified outbreak of paranormal activity that had coincidentally began immediately after Sam took me to that museum, and a best friend getting engaged to a tackle box faced loudmouth, I needed the laugh.

That Night

Even when she was just a square on a screen, Sam never failed to tilt a head. She was not only done up with bat wing hair clips and a chromed skull necklace, she was videocasting from a room that appeared to be full of mummified cats and statues of Egyptian goddesses with the heads of animals. I could spot Bastet somewhere over her right shoulder as she went on about what it was like to visit her old school since she'd stopped teaching. I was leaning back on my bed and flipping through a magazine as she went through the lengthy story, the media screen on the opposite wall wasn't the best work phone but it worked for casual calls. She finally took a break to breathe.

"...Am I boring you with all this?"

I looked up and shook my head before diving back into the feature on a southpaw I'd been hearing about all the time.

"No, it's the most intelligent ranting I've heard in a while."

She rolled her eyes at my attempt at flattery.

"You must really be dying of boredom out there, Alan."

I reread the same line three times. And a single line for me takes a while. I slowly craned my head back up, keeping my features as controlled as possible as I gave her a sheepish smirk, and an unfaltering...

"...Yeah. But it could be worse, I guess."


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries. I do own all original characters.

One Month Later

Today is June 3rd. The day I've been dreading for weeks. It's Friday, ironically enough. Friday was always my favorite day of the week as a kid.

I got back from the gym early on the day that it happened, I walked home from the train depot around noon. I took a shower, made myself something to eat and waited in my room for the very moment that's been haunting my dreams the last few nights.

By the time three rolled around, I was hearing every tick of every clock in the house. Twenty seven seconds before three, I heard the main door open down on the first floor. I heard the sounds of two nylon bags hitting the wooden floor of the living room. I heard four feet clatter up the steps. Then the other flight to stairs leading up to my room. I took a deep breath, bracing myself as the noises finally reached my doorway, and my win sisters both jumped into view.

"Hey Alan! Guess what day it is!"

I didn't answered Kerri's question, I just sat there with my eyes closed. Sherri answered it for me.

"The first day of summer!"

They both let out a high-pitched screeching sound that still scares me at age nineteen. I felt my nerves tie into square knots as they finished their wail.

"And look at these!"

I opened one eye curiously. Look at what? This had been going on every year since they started kindergarten, this was new. They were now standing in front of my bed, holding up two sheets of gilded paper. I leaned forward and read each one.

"…those are high school diplomas…"

They both nodded like bobble heads.

"We're just juniors, but they said we did so great we can leave school a year early!"

I just stared at the diplomas. So, at the last minute their principal decided to graduate them early? And they thought they were geniuses? Wow. Mrs. Schroeder is smarter than I thought she was, she just got rid of them for the sake of the entire school and faculty. Wait…so this was the last time they'd run up, ask me what day it was, and do that screech thing?

"…so, you two are going to be here all the time next year…"

They both nodded, grinning.

"…I wonder if that men's shelter has vacancies…"

I hated spending three short months with them. Now they were here for the rest of our lives…and now they're running back down to their room to call up their friends who are still in high school. I just fell back on my bed and turned invisible. If I play my cards right, nobody is going to see me for a _long_ time…

2 Hours Later

My folks were overjoyed at their daughter's early independent life. Within an hour they'd made plans for next year, and called the dean of those college courses I take online to sign up two more students. When my mother went to the top floor to get something off my desk she noticed the way I had been slumped over on my bed, face down. She sighed, rubbed my shoulder slightly and said that magic phrase.

"How about you head into the city to tell my sisters?"

Before she could let go of my shoulder there was nothing left of me but a swinging door and a little speck in the distance running down the road.

I actually hopped onto the back of the train while it was moving, I wasn't going to wait ten minutes for the next one. When the conductor walked back and saw some kid in a leather jacket clinging to the back of the train like James Bond, he opened the door for me, chuckling.

"Your sisters on summer break?"

I nodded, panting from holding on to a moving train.

"You going to tell your aunts?"

I nodded again. The elderly, African American conductor known as James to the regular commuters, smiled at me as he just pointed to an empty seat, not asking me for a ticket. I slumped down next to the window, just as I had every first day of summer for the ten years, give or take a few leap years.

So, why did I jump a speeding train to see my aunts? Well, I would have flown but it's broad daylight. But why am I so eager?

You see, my mother was one in five sisters. My mother is actually half Cuban on her mother's side, so are my aunts. She doesn't look Latin at first glance, she's the palest of the sisters. And she dyes her hair a honey brown. And she doesn't have an accent. And she stays out of the sun. And she married a white guy. The same goes for my sisters and I, I'm not as deathly pale as my dad but I still look European.

So, I have five very Latino aunts who all live in the city that I frequent. Sounds fun, eh? Well, it gets better. Each of my aunts is involved in a very unique business or trade. All the sisters went in exotic directions. My mother into the supernatural, for example.

I'll cut to the first aunt. On the lighter side of the city, I walk through some high end clothing stores before turning into a glass-walled store flaring posters of unique hair styles. I open the door and am nearly blown back by the acoustic Latin music being bounced out from the speakers around the hair salon. I look around to see mostly Hispanic women waiting in chairs, or having their hair cut by several, you guessed it, Latin hair stylists. Guess what part of town I'm in?

I walk through the isles of women, a few of the stylists smile and greet me.

"Alan! You grow again over the school year?

"Kid, it's June already?"

"Alan, oí que usted tenía una gran lucha pasada."

I nod at each greeting and keep walking to the far end, where an older stylist patrols the chairs supervising the others. She examines the work area of a college-age girl with blonde streaks before turning and noticing me, her face breaking into a smile similar to my mother's.

"Well, about time my nephew came down here again."

Before I could get a word out she grabbed me by the shoulder, pulling me over to an empty chair and sitting me down. She grabbed some scissors and started hacking away at my hair as she spoke. She did this with incredible strength for her size, she was hardly taller than my mother at five feet.

"…well, the girls got their diplomas a year early."

She sighed, mumbling in Spanish.

"I'm sure you just love that, right?"

We continued chatting as she cut my hair, by the time I walked out I'd gotten a sport cut, longer bangs than usual but very lightweight on the sides and top. Honestly I didn't need a hair cut, but I have a family discount in there. Well, how ever my hair was cut it'd still look odd when I…well, that whole ghost thing.

The next sister I walk into a restaurant and chat with my mother's sister as I help her tend the bar, mixing drinks like she taught me to do when I was twelve and keeping the tips the patrons slip me. Once again I explain my sister's newfound freedom.

And the next.

"Well, at least they got their diplomas…"

My aunt, clad in a traditional martial arts gi, said this as she flipped me over her shoulder onto the padded dojo floor. I grunted as my back hit the canvas, hissing as I swept her feet out from under her, starting a grappling match.

"At least. So how's Uncle Harold doing?"

She shrugged, my ankles wrapped around her neck in a choke.

"He's close to that promotion, after all that overtime."

Then she flipped me off her with a kick to the stomach, I tapped out when I hit the ground.

Later on I found myself at the city's zoo, sitting on a balcony, my feet dangling off the edge as I watch two tigers feed on a bag of steaks. The woman throwing the steaks comments.

"Those girls really need some more guidance than that, my sister and your father aren't exactly role models."

I shrug in agreement as a tiger slashes the bag open to get the steaks.

And finally, I reach the workplace and home of the oldest sister. I walk through the door into what at first glance, is obviously a dance studio. From the outside you can see several separate rooms, each one occupied by some form of dance classes. Tap, Irish, ball room, conga, but I walk through right through all the cultures to the very back of the school, seeing several rooms full of girls in leotards doing their daily exercises. No, not push ups and sit ups like in boxing, I'm talking ballet.

I walk through one of the sound doors into an unsupervised class full of girls about my age, maybe twenty or so at the oldest. They're all balanced on one foot, legs propped up against the wall bar as they work on posture. One saw me, broke out of the classic French frown they have to wear, and waved. Then the other followed suit, recognizing me.

"Afternoon, Ladies. Any idea where my Aunt Janet is?"

They all pointed to the office, I thanked the ballerinas and walked back out to a door without a window in it. I knock and poke my head in to see my Aunt Janet going through a box of music, humming to herself. She was the odd ball of the family, nearly six foot tall and slender, dwarfing all her sisters. She was a master of the dancing arts, they say. She taught most of the forms in her school, she traveled with some Russian Ballet troupe for a while before settling down. She heard the door open and nodded when she saw me.

"Back for more dance lessons or did your sisters graduate early?"

I just stared. She had an odd habit of…well, her little jokes tend to make me think she's psychic. I looked at her for a second and shrugged.

"How'd you know?"

She chuckled, going back to sorting through the old compact discs, standing behind a desk in the traditional black leotard of a teacher.

"Same way I always do. You came just in time, I need a male to do some drills with the girls in ten minutes."

…did I mention she's my favorite aunt? I spent the afternoon tossing professional dancers in the air, catching them, spinning them by the hand and cracking jokes with them about boxing being like full contact ballet. Hey, I'm still half human under all the ghost-freak stuff. And a teenage male

The sun had started scorch when I flew in my window back home, staying invisible as I took a walk through the house to see if things had calmed down yet. I walked silently down the stairs leading up to my room to find the house empty. The dishes in the sink showed evidence of a celebration dinner. And Frost was passed out on the couch, his stomach bulging with table scraps.

I rolled my eyes at the lack of a note, and went visible as I sat down on the couch. Well, it had been a good day until my family forgot I existed. Again. You know, it's odd. When my sisters were born when I was two, my folks didn't all out abandon me. They kept paying attention and raising me just like the twins. They trained me in ghost hunting until I quit when I was twelve. That seems to be when they gave up on me and just let me live here with them and their daughters.

Nothing on TV except a news report some disturbance at a museum. They had live footage of people saying what happened. The background was a crowd of people, their heads covering the bottom of the museum. A frazzled-looking brunette woman had a microphone pressed against her trachea.

"…it just was everywhere at once! Those eyes…they were green!"

By the time she finished saying 'green' I was sitting there in my black jacket, white hair and fake-looking tan. I floated up, charged to go through the wall straight to the city when I heard it.

"…until the Fentons showed up."

I froze in mid air. I was floating five feet off the ground, hanging there horizontally with on3 fist extended all heroically. Not moving. I watched the camera switch to what looked like my family, all dressed in their latest ghost outfits, posing for pictures next to the front of the museum. I slowly floated back down to the couch, leaning forward in my seat.

"The Fentons used their technology and expertise to subdue the ghost into retreat, they have searched the building using their scanning technology, and have confirmed that the ghost is long gone. Back to you, Fred."

I stared at Fred's sprayed on hairline without focusing my eyes. No wonder no one was home. While I was out being normal for a change, they finally got their chance to do something for a change. I watched the replay on another channel. The ghost (not caught on camera) started causing trouble around noon, my folks and sisters showed up around one.

Well, this will pay for our research and luxuries for another twenty years. I checked the caller ID to find several doctors and institutes calling. Well, looks like we're going back on the road again. I was already thinking of excuses to avoid all the hotel dinners and seminars. What's an easily cured form of cancer?

They got home around nine that night, dressed to the nines in their jump suits and helmets. And they were so proud of themselves I'm amazed those helmets didn't crack open. The second they found me asleep on the couch with Frost using me as a pillow, they woke me up to retell the exact story I'd heard on the news. Kerri and Sherri were going nuts over having taken on a ghost for the first time. Same with my parents, but they didn't show it.

"Alan, you should have been there!"

…I should have, actually. But those well-proportioned dancers need to have _some one_ throw them into the air…but seriously, I should have handled it. These guys could have gotten hurt. I waited for them to stop talking about what weapons they used to ask the obvious.

"…what'd it look like?"

My father froze in mid-boast, his eyes closed but no longer in remembrance. He slowly opened them, now looking confused.

"…we believe it was invisible…but whenever we fired in its direction the disturbances moved slightly, it was obviously there."

I raised an eyebrow, but not enough that he'd notice.

"So…you told the press you were face to face with it."

He faked a grin, holding back a wince.

"Alan, haven't we taught you anything? Ghosts can turn invisible at will!"

This time I let my cocked eyebrow became apparent. He quickly shuffled off in his suit saying he needed to repair his helmet. My mother went with him while the twins pushed Frost off the couch, sitting on both sides of me.

"…it was boring."

I was shocked to hear Kerri say that, either she was talking to me or Sherri. Sherri replied.

"Yeah, I swear we were just shooting at a broken vent system."

…so, they shot ghost weaponry blasts at some boxes being blown by a broken vent? Kerri chirped.

"Alan, we should have dropped out of this like you did. We're sick of faking."

…sick…fak…drop…what!

I stood straight up, walked a few steps and spun so I could look at the two of them.

"Say that again…"

Sherri, in her green jumpsuit, shrugged.

"We're only doing this for Mom and Dad."

Kerri nodded.

"We thought we finally might see a ghost…"

They sighed simultaneously. I let this sink in. My sisters…the greatest upcoming ghost hunters…don't believe in ghosts like my parents, and act like they're fashion models all the time?

"…you two were just faking?"

They looked at me like I'd asked I they'd recently had an arm removed. One of them nodded. I shook my head to myself in disbelief.

"…this family _really_ needs to communicate more…"

They nodded in agreement as they got up to go peel off those jumpsuits. I watched them walk off, still not believing it. My siblings, were partially sane after all.

Then next few days were pretty slow. My parents were holed up in their office making calls, my sisters were off enjoying their endless summer, and I was…well, let's cut to three days later.

"…it's 'nevar' put with the wrong end facing the front."

The ghost, perched atop a mountain of broken books, dressed in a green suit with a question mark for a hat, stared down at where I floated in a combat stance. He got up the nerve to speak in a rather whiny voice.

"…two out of three?"

I sighed, then shot forward in the blink o an eye and landed a flying uppercut into his chest, sending him flying into and through the back wall of the library. I flew over to a window and watched a speck shoot off into the sky, eventually winking out of existence. Back to the Ghost Realm, via his own power.

As I flew around the completely demolished main hall of a library, I wondered if it would have to close down to make repairs. I had an hour or so before the police would show up, this was in a very suburban town.

So, what happened? The librarians here had been taken hostage by that guy in the suit. He seemed to have immeasurable power compared to other ghosts. His gimmick was riddles. The librarians weren't able to answer them, and this gave him the power to tie them up in a back room while he scared off anyone who tried to rescue them. When he saw me fly in with my jacket and boots, he started making jokes about old action movies.

Insert one sided fight scene here. The guy can't feel pain. I hadn't answered his riddles, giving him power. I figured out his game after a few hours of mindless boxing (…old habits die hard, and even then to have to shoot them in the head when they're zombies) He pulled out the biggest riddle of his arsenal. 'How is a raven like a writing desk?'

Well, you know the rest. Apparently because I knew the answer, I could hit him and send him back to the Ghost Zone. Man, did that guy get a bad deal. Probably sold his soul for the riddle thing, and now it's in pieces like a Swedish furniture kit.

I turned invisible before looking for the librarians. I found them tied up with old fashioned rope and gagged with rags in the back room. I stayed invisible as I undid the knots of the rope and the gags before walking through the wall to the street and taking off, flying while invisible. Which, as I'm learning as I'm doing it, is hard as heck.

Imagine running against a wind tunnel, with a headache and a foot cramp. Two blocks later I had to crash land into an alley, go solid and human and slump against a wall to catch my breath.

I felt the brick under my palm crack slightly as I panted in the empty alley. I reached up with my free hand to rub my forehead, when I let it drop I saw several drops of sweat drip off onto the concrete. Remember that whole will power thing? Well, flying full speed while staying invisible is nearly impossible. This is why I only fly at night. Short distances are a breeze. But full speed for over a few city blocks nearly knocks me out.

Eventually I was able to breathe without gasping and I walked out into the street, finding nothing but an empty suburban block. I wiped off the rest of the sweat on my face with my shirt and wondered how I'd get back, I'd taken the train to this unfamiliar town, and I couldn't find my way back to the depot.

I leaned against a lamp post for a few minutes before pulling out my cell phone and calling home. I rang six times before my mom answered.

"Fenton Labs, we're booked for the next year, sorry."

Before she could hang up I yelled that it was me.

"Oh! Alan, sorry about that."

I sighed, rolling my eyes.

"Mom, I'm staying a little longer at the gym. I'll be back some time after dark."

She said that was fine and hung up. I looked up to see the sky was a light blue color. I couldn't fly home until nightfall when no one could see me, and I doubt it would get dark soon. I sighed, looking around for a movie theater or something but seeing only low apartment buildings and a general store. I cursed to myself in Spanish and English before walking up towards the old fashioned general store.

And guess what, there's an old fashioned closed sign in the window. I stare at it angrily for a few minutes before walking down the other side of the street.

Well, I would have gotten to the end of the street if there hadn't been a limo parked right behind where I'd been walking. I hadn't heard it pull up. It was just parked there in the middle of the deserted street, its black side panels a few feet of where I was on the sidewalk. I figured I was interrupting something and continued walking. The limo backed up at the same speed I walked, keeping the rear window even with my pace.

I stopped, so did it. I moon walked a few feet backwards, it pulled forward. I went into a sprint stance and I heard the accelerator charge. I stood back up straight, scratched my head and walked over to the window. It slid down quickly, revealing a tanned, black haired man with a bleached white smile and phony blue contact lenses.

"…Lad, tell me, are you a Fenton?"

I managed not to roll my eyes. This again.

"Yes I am, but I don't do interviews, contracts or sponsorship deals. Unless you know me from boxing, I don't exist, check the memo."

He paid close attention to my pre-recorded speech, still smiling those impossible white teeth.

"…actually, I'm not looking for a ghost hunter _or_ a boxer. I'm looking for the grandson of a Daniel Fenton."

I raised an eyebrow for the fifth time that day, crossing my arms. Well, that explains a lot.

"Well, here I am."

I saw his arm move, and the door opened, revealing his black business suit stretched out on the seat.

"Come on in, we have to talk."

I didn't move. What did my parents tell, don't get in cars with strangers. Wait. I'm a boxing champion. With martial arts training. And ghost powers. And a sharp set of keys in my back pocket.

What the heck, I ducked into the limo and sat on the other set of seats facing the guy. He closed the door and the car began moving again, the dead scenery floating past the tinted windows. My host kept smiling, looking me over, but it seemed he couldn't take his eyes off my face. I stayed stock-still, not giving anything away.

"…I've been trying to contact your family for a while now, but the phone's been busy."

Sounded realistic. He kept on.

"I want to finance a documentary on the Fenton Family due to their recent incident."

I nodded slightly.

"You and six other Hollywood stiffs."

He stared for a second, his smile flattening out, before he broke into laughing.

"Well, you have their sense of humor! But back on course, I haven't found any records of Daniel Fenton. I was wondering if you could arrange that I could meet him."

Now my eyebrow slant became pronounced. This guy was either up to something, or a complete idiot. Probably both.

"He died before I was born."

His face broke into faked sympathy.

"Oh! I'm very sorry, how did it happen?"

I shot a look out the window, we were just circling the block, not going anywhere.

"…I'm not sure. All I know was it was when my father was a few years old, and that it wasn't natural causes."

His face kept smiling, but his eyes betrayed him. He looked disappointed. Or he was waiting for me to leave so he could scratch himself.

"Well, thank you. You've been a better help than your parents' agents."

He opened the door for me to get out, reaching in his suit pocket as I walked over to the door. As I stepped back out onto the street he stuck a card in my hand. He closed the door, keeping the window open to call to me before his driver gunned it.

"Call me if you find out anything!"

And then he was gone in a cloud of concrete dust. I blinked, mostly to clean the dirt out of my eyes as I stepped back onto a sidewalk, looking at his card.

_Vlad Masters II_

_Masters Enterprises_

_555-666-7778_

…that is the stupidest phone number I've ever…wait…Vlad…where have I heard that…this isn't for dramatic effect, by the way, I'm just a moron.

I stood there staring at the card, tracing back the last ten minutes. He knew I was a Fenton, so did anyone with a magazine subscription. I looked around at the foreign street. How did he know I'd be out here? We live fifty miles away, he just happened to be waiting for me in the last place I'd be walking around? My concentration broke as he wind blew a piece of paper past. Probably a book page from the library.

I jerked my eyes back o the card as realization hit me. The library! He's shown up figuring the Fentons would be all over it! He must have been driving around looking for any Fenton he could.

I heard some people walking down the street, so I tucked the card into my pocket as I started walking so I wouldn't look out of place. Hey, another general store. With the same closed sign. That jerk didn't even drive me anywhere! Sure he probably killed my grandfather, stalked my great grandmother and is involved with my life going to hell, but he could have at least dropped me off at an arcade!

4 Hours Later

Darkness finally fell, and I was able to fly home after following a railroad track to the station back home. I was tired as heck, flying isn't breathing, so I went human and walked home at what must have been ten at night. My folks didn't notice when I crawled up the steps covered in sweat and splattered bugs from the flight home.

After a showed and a change of clothes I slumped into my desk chair, pulled out my cell phone and dialed my grandmother's number. She picked up on the first ring.

"Grandma? It has to be midnight over there, why are you up?"

I heard her scoff.

"I'm not some old lady, Alan."

I rolled my eyes.

"…well, today some guy talked to me in a limo. Said his name was Vlad Masters."

Silenc for a few seconds on her part.

"…you mean Vlad Masters the second…"

I whipped out the card and saw she was right.

"How'd you know?"

"I read about his son taking over the family business."

I thought that over.

"Wait…you said nobody would have sex with this guy unless he was the last human on Earth, and crossbreeding with farm animals proved impossible after several failed attempts. "

"…he's posing as his own son. He never married."

Ohh. That makes perfect sense, an elderly man posing as a young CEO with a ponytail.

"…pardon?"

I heard a popping sound, she must be chewing gum.

"He can change his appearance."

This sent me into the back of my chair, loosely holding the phone. Changing his appearance? As in completely?"

"Alan? You there?"

"Yeah…yeah. He was asking about Danny. Said he couldn't find any records of him."

She didn't respond at first, obviously confused.

"…you mean he just said that…"

"He didn't seem interested in me, he was going around looking for any Fenton he could. He seemed ticked when I said I didn't know."

"…that doesn't make sense…he was the one Danny went off to find when he didn't come back."

I stood straight up, knocking my chair back.

"You never saw it happen!"

She replied meekly, probably taken back.

"…Um…no, but Vlad bragged later on how he died…"

"…Sam, he's the average villain. All he does is make bad come-ons and brag about killing people before they show up just fine."

"…what are you saying?"

I started pacing my room, nearly crushing the flip phone against my ear.

"He was bluffing. He knows what happened about as much as you do."

She sounded like she was in shock. I believe it. All these years of accepting the story just so she wouldn't be in denial, now it's all back on the rack.

"Alan. How do you know this?"

I stopped in mid-step, realizing I was crouched forward like a detective with a magnifying lens.

"…I…don't know…"

Her arrogant tone returned.

"Either you're a psychic like that one aunt of yours, or you should have been a detective instead of some prize fighter."

I slumped back down onto my bed. The roles have switched back. I'm the student, she's the teacher. She always is, in fact she taught High School literature classes for years even though Fentons made enough to retire young.

"But you have a point. The case on my late husband is back out, even though he was slightly dead when I married him."

I snorted, falling onto my back on the bed.

"You know for sure Vlad doesn't know about you, right?"

I blinked up at the ceiling.

"He saw me face to face, I was in his limo. I think he knows about me by now."

"…I mean, does he know about the Phantom?"

I quickly fell in step with the conversation, sitting back up. I'm always animated like this when I'm on the phone.

"Nobody, knows about the Phantom. He's a new urban legend around these parts, and he people who do believe he exists thinks he's another ghost from Wisconsin."

"Speaking of which, any idea why Vlad is letting these ghosts run loose?"

I felt something click in my brain, and the words flowed out of my mouth before I knew what they were.

"…they're looking for Danny…that's why he came here from Wisconsin himself, one of his thugs must have said he saw the Halfa in this area."

"Alan?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop reading those Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books."

And she hung up, leaving me standing in front of my desk with a dead phone. I flipped it closed and turned to put it on my desk. As I did so I caught my reflection in the mirror and I looked up to adjust my hair. Then I noticed.

Looking at me from the wall was my usual appearance. Black hair, light complexion, but staring at me from the mirror were two very green eyes from the center of my face.

I leaned closer, seeing my green eyed reflection move with me. I blinked and saw the green replaced by my usual light blue. I breathed a sigh of relief and fell back into my chair like a sack of bricks, more tired from that conversation than from a ghost battle and a fifty mile flight in the dark. And now to top off the pile when I got emotional my eyes changed color. Superman had it easy.

I woke up to find Kerri shaking me awake. I'd fell asleep in my clothes right in my desk chair, it was now about nine in the morning. For a guy who wakes up before the sun can use the bathroom, this was late. I looked at my sister's close-held face and grunted to myself, in the middle of a dream where I fell out of a plane into a marshmallow factory next to a Hooters restaurant.

"Alan, you up?"

I grunted, spinning in my chair so I wouldn't smell what brand toothpaste she used.

"Cousin Kirby just showed up out of the blue, we're going to the mall with her. You wanna come?"

"…go to the mall with three teenage girls…"

"We'll pay you to carry our bags."

"I'm in."

Two hours later we were in the food court at a corner table, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of bags I'd been carrying like a pack mule. Sitting between my twin sisters sat our cousin, Kirby. Short for Kirinia. She's Aunt Janet's daughter, Aunt Janet as in lets me help out at the dance studio psychic Aunt Janet. And her daughter follows suit. She's twenty or so, about my height and half my weight. She still looks feminine of course, but so many years of dancing leaves a girl with just muscle and bone structure. Why do I know this? I'm a bodybuilder, I memorize the names of bones for sport.

But Kirby isn't just a dancer these days. She's musical. In high school she received several awards for having the best voice in the state, and nominated for best guitar playing. And she's received the nomination from everyone, for the quirkiest girl on the face of this giant ball of water and dirt being flung around a giant fireball like an airplane on a string.

As my sisters were chatting about shoes, she was picking up the rice balls she'd ordered with her chopsticks, tossing them into the air and catching them in her mouth like a trained dog. Now, watching a golden Latin girl with wavy black hair down to her back catching rice balls like a Labrador _should_ be perverted somehow to a male, but it just isn't. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention she's my first blood cousin, you perverts.

After finishing her box of rice in this matter while I finished my drink, watching her eat in pure fascination, she leaned back in her chair to pick her teeth with a hang nail.

"_Primos_, you two need to space out a bit. Dress differently, do your hair, gets some tattoos!"

My sisters, wearing green and red but identical outfits, looked at each other slightly at the suggestions of tattoos. I on the other hand, nearly chocked on my tonsils laughing. My unusual cousin flashed a white-toothed smirk at my response as she got up, picking up her purse and tossing me some bags. I loaded the thirty or so bags onto my back like a horse as my sisters picked up their matching purses.

Kerri and Sherri hustled off to a map of the mall, but as I followed them I saw Kirby waving me over to a vending machine she was standing next to. I walked over, not caring about the hundred pounds on my back.

"Alan, thank goodness. This thing just stole my buck."

She pointed her thumb at the vending machine, her bag of cookies was hanging off the wire spiral.

"Mind punching this thing through the wall?"

I shrugged, reaching through the glass and pulling out her cookies, handing them to her. As I went to walk off I froze. Oh, mother of…

I looked up to see my cousin staring at me, glancing at the bag in her hand every few seconds as if it were magic. I slowly cleared my throat.

"…you didn't just see that…"

She looked at me blankly before breaking into her usual smile and walking towards the twins, motioning for me to follow.

"I didn't. But what I didn't just see means I owe my mom ten bucks, who would have thought she was right."

I stared at her as we walked together, the twins were still out of earshot.

"…you…don't mind what you just didn't see?"

She shrugged her thin shoulders, still smiling.

"Nah. At least I'm not the only weirdo in this family."

…did I mention my aunt is possibly psychic?

Author's Note

...weird chapter, eh? Why did I include Alan's aunts? Well, I want you guys to realize Alan has his own life, ghost or not. And talking about his past, dictates between he lines what he' capable of. So,what's with the Latin stuff? Well, as I'm writing this my girlfriend is on the phone, sitting on the edge of my desk chair chattering with her great-grandmother in Spanish. Do the math. Who's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? He wrote Sherlock Holmes, the character that inspired me to become the training detective I am today. Is Alan a fan char based on myself? No. I'm just an avid boxer, writer and jack of all trades who writes his main characters as such.


	4. Chapter 4

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

So, how many months has it been this time? Just one? Six? Am I a forty year old veteran with an eye patch and bionic legs now? Actually this occurs barely ten or so hours after my last. I'd taken the girls home, walked up to my room saying I have something to work on, and went straight out my window to the train station. There have been some minor references in to local newspapers about some unusual sightings in an abandoned warehouse. Better safe than sorry, so I took a trip out there.

Guess what I found? A bunch of overweight teenagers with expensive cameras and night vision goggles, talking about magnetic fields and temperature readings, wandering around the warehouse talking into a voice recorder. They were making an independent film about ghosts and spread those rumors for publicity.

I was ticked, so I crouched down in a shadowed room in an un-natural stance, letting my eyes glow so they'd just see a demonic shadow with two eyes. When they opened the door looking for a bathroom that still worked, they saw me, and froze. I moved my hand towards them and they ran out screaming. What? I'm a ghost, let me have some fun revenge.

So, that's it. No major fight, no major revelation. I'm disappointed too. By the time I flew home from the train station it had midnight, so I towards the barn instead of my house to wait for my family to go to sleep. Hey, they're scientists, they usually clock out at therein the morning. So there I was, flying toward the ranch not even bothering to hold one fist out heroically, I was too tired. The wind felt nice at least, the train never had air conditioning.

I noticed the lights on in the main house, confirming that my folks were awake so I dovetailed out to the right, straight toward the blocky shadow of the barn. The moon drifted out from a cloud and in the pale blue light I saw a square opening on the angled portion of the barn roof. It was once a skylight for the barn and for ventilation. Now that we had electricity in there it was pointless, but I kept it open just for this purpose. I flew up in a sharp curve, then dove right through the square frame in a semi-perfect flip onto my feet, not even making a creak as my feet hit the old loft boards.

I dusted off my jacket, it seemed to clean itself every time I shifted shape but the dust occasionally settled on it and clashed with the black. I adjusted the folded collar, turning to look for the ladder. I noticed it right next to that glowing electric lantern and the girl with the guitar. I walked over and jumped/flipped twenty feet down to the first floor. Then thought of something. When did I get a lantern? And a girl with a guitar? I flew back up, landing in front of the brightly glowing electric lantern and its owner.

…sitting cross-legged on the floor of the loft, guitar laying across her lap, was Kirby. Dressed in a very loose hooded sweatshirt and equally baggy jeans to keep warm, she was sitting there holding the bridge of the guitar as if she were in the middle of a song, staring at me. I stepped a bit closer, into the light of the lantern so she wouldn't see two green eyes like those nerds at the warehouse. She didn't blink. Judging by the fact she wasn't smiling, she was probably in shock.

I cleared my throat, my common sense apparently MIA as I stayed in ghost form.

"...how long you been there?"

She shrugged slightly, not taking her wide eyes off me.

"Few hours…eh, you just get a make over?"

I looked down at my appearance, thankfully I was too tan to blush in this form. As I thought of an excuse, maybe a costume party, I hard her speak up as I looked down at my boots.

"…I already know about it. Remember? The vending machine?"

…oh. Well, in that case I won't have to make up an excuse about how the drugs being passed around at the party allowed me to fly. I looked back up to see her now relaxed and in her usual toothy smile. She gently set down her guitar besides the lantern, standing up to nearly my height and walking up to me as if approaching a potential dance partner. I stayed still as she moved closer and closer until her tan face was inches from mine. Her dark green eyes were cutting into mine, examining the neon color. Between the skylight showing the full moon, and her lantern it was clear enough to see each other if we stood sideways from the light. Oh yeah, and night vision kicks serious ass.

Eventually, her curious, cat-like eyes began to make me uncomfortable. I cleared my throat to try and give her a hint. I felt her grab my head, pulling it down so my silver hair was at her eye level, I didn't ask what she was doing as she ran her nails through my hair. She let go of my hair without warning, stepping back so I could tilt my head up as in one smooth motion she bent down onto one tall knee and took the open sides of my jacket in grasp. She began feeling the material between her hands, even leaning close to examine the leather in the dim light.

"This isn't leather. No cracks in it, you get this right from the shop?"

I blinked, probably very visible since my eyes glow in the dark. She took this as a 'What?'

"This is either fresh off the cow leather, or something else."

She let go of my jacket, standing back up in something that looked like a tango move. Thankfully, she left my pants, shirt and shoes alone. She just grabbed my wrist, pulling it out before me so she could examine my sleeve, and so enough she was holding my hand between hers. She pressed her thumb into the skin on my knuckles, feeling the huge calluses that she'd seen me have for years. Punching bags. She resigned to flipping my hand over to look at the palm, either she was checking how my skin felt or she was reading my palm like her mom did once. She leaned her cat-eyes close to my open hand, confirming my guess.

"Your lifeline is longer than it was…"

She'd read my palm six months ago at a family reunion that became boring very fast. I raised one silver eyebrow, not understanding what she meant.

"The lifeline is more or less a guideline to your time on Earth. A few months ago you had about sixty years left. Now your lifeline runs straight to the edge of your energy point."

"…English? Or Spanish even?"

She made a musical grunt in her throat, pulling my hand closer to her face trying to see in the light of the dimming lantern.

"Well, a palm reader can't pin a death date on you."

She suddenly let go, letting my hand swing back to my side as she shifted her weight to one dancer's leg, smirking so I could see the slanted line of pearly teeth in the dark.

"Well, the new look suits you."

I just stared.

"Um…hearing that from a cousin, thanks."

She walked back over to her lantern and guitar without a word, falling forward into a comfortable sitting position. She once again smiled up at me, I was still standing in the dark.

"Well, show me your moves Cuz'."

I stared at her blankly for a minute or so before breaking into a small smirk. I slowly raised my right hand and snapped my fingers, smirking more as a bright green ball of flame appeared in my open palm. I held it there, it floated an inch above my hand as its light washed over the dark loft. I saw my cousin nod her head in interest before I turned on my heel and flung the fireball out into the open air of the barn. It streaked right towards the wall as I reached out the same hand and made a pulling motion, the ball slowed down and disappeared without a trace before it hit the wooden wall.

"I tried moving it around once. I can make it drift one way a bit, but for the most part I just pull or throw."

The green light of my flame faded, leaving just the lantern's circle of light in front of me. Kirinia was leaned back against her guitar, looking slightly impressed. Her golden face was tilted a bit at me, still examining my form with those eyes that were trained to watch dance steps.

"So, fireballs, flying, what else?"

I flashed another faint smirk as I walked up to her circle of light.

"I'll fly you back to the house, show you a few things."

One of her penciled eyebrows raised at my suggestion as she reached behind her, pulling out a piece of cloth which she wrapped her guitar in before switching off the lantern. I didn't notice the sudden lack of light, these eyes are amazing. I stepped back into the beam of moonlight so she could see me. I turned to the wall away from her and bent my knees slightly.

"Hop on."

I heard her snort behind me.

"Sounds fun already."

I managed not to sound surprised as I felt a sudden weight clamp onto my back, two arms lock themselves around my neck to cross around my chest, and two legs longer than mine wrap around my midsection, so long they wrapped around me at least twice. I rolled my glow-in-the-dark eyes to myself.

"Well, somebody has done this before."

And I felt light elbow smack into the back of my head, I chuckled and jumped straight forward, taking flight and speeding towards the wall. I heard my passenger prepare to scream right before impact, when I went invisible and went cleanly through the wall. She stopped her upcoming screech as she opened her eyes and saw we were outside, slowly drifting as she adjusted. She must have looked at herself because she said.

"…whoa, where are we?"

I shrug, curving up into the air and towards the third floor windows. The lights in the basement had gone out, finally. She clutched me tighter as I gained altitude, I was barely flying 2MPH so she wouldn't scream or anything.

"Invisibility, I have the density of oxygen like this. I found out last week I can do the same thing to whatever I'm touching at the time."

I floated up to my window, which was marked by a little desk lamp visible in the dark glass, floating through a section of the wall and the window before moving my feet forward and landing standing on both feet. I felt her slide off, probably onto her feet like a cat. I turned to see her looking herself over, confirming she was visible again. I flicked on a light as she stopped looking herself over.

"…where'd you learn to fly?"

I shot her a confused look, I probably looked less creepy in a lit room.

"…well…eh, it took me ten minutes to learn, really."

She replied with a confused look of her own, probably inherited from her mother, just like I did mine.

"…let's leave it at that then…"

She sat down on my bed in her baggy clothes. I found this odd, she usually had snappy outfits, but that old boxing hoodie and the torn jeans weren't even her size. Wait…that was boxing hoodie number 23 that I kept in the third shelf of my dresser…I blinked hard, going human before asking the obvious.

"…why are you wearing my clothes?"

She looked down at herself casually, taking her time before looking up at me ready with a smile that could melt a glacier.

"I only brought my guitar, my suitcase was too heavy."

I sat down on the edge of my desk, the conversation was becoming more normal.

"…suitcase? Kerri said you just popped in for a shopping trip."

She laid down without warning onto my bead, her hair fanning out around her head like a halo on the comforter. She always seemed to make her movements dramatic without trying.

"…my mom got the short straw when grandma got out of the hospital."

I gave her a look of sympathy even though she was staring at my ceiling. She sighed in the usual drama queen fashion before continuing.

"And as you know, grandma is…"

"…an ancient bitch who Adam turned down for Eve. He'd rather get kicked out of Eden than marry her."

She laughed. Which scared me a bit, she has this way of just busting out in a guffaw without warning.

"Whew…yeah, she hates the way I dress, act, the way I was born in a hospital…you know her. So, for a change my mom has the mercy in her heart to let me stay with another part of the family for a while."

I asked jokingly.

"So, you're staying here until they clear out a habitat for you at the zoo?"

She smiled at the ceiling, I'm not a funny guy, she just has that kind of outlook on life.

"I'm here for as long as she's there. I remembered those guest rooms you have, and the way you all do your own thing."

I shrugged to myself, nodding at her point. It was an easy household for some one like her.

"So I got a ride down here with the essentials, and my stuff is being shipped."

I nodded in understanding, picking up a little figurine off my desk and tossing it between both hands.

"Sounds good. So, how exactly did your mom find out I'd…"

She stayed on her back, but tilted her head up to give me an apologetic face, raising her eyebrows while giving a little smile.

"…she just mentioned before I left that you walked into the studio that morning, and she thinks she had a vision of you…flying."

I let my eyes lower.

"…flying…"

She nodded.

"Flying. I told her it must be a symbol for something, but she said she saw you actually flying while after you left. Another of those visions she gets."

I set down the figure onto my desktop. That makes sense. She had a vision a month ago about my grandmother getting the flu from some filthy young guy at one of her wild parties, and she's just getting out of the hospital today.

"That seems reasonable. So, you're staying here."

She nodded, breaking into a grin as she rolled off my bed into a full standing position, lifted her leg effortlessly up and propped it atop my desk chair, doing stretches without thinking.

"…and you thought it'd be nice to go out to the barn loft and do some chords before bed."

She nodded, still happily doing her stretches while humming the bars to 'The Nutcracker' to herself. I told you she was quirky.

"Hey, I see you have some new posters."

She pointed up at my ceiling as she bent her torso down to meet her raised knee.

Ah, my posters. My room is pretty Spartan. Bathroom, bed, walk-in closet, desk, flat-screen TV on the wall in the corner. And my walls are plastered with vintage boxing promo posters. Every inch of my room, including the ceiling as of last week, is covered in famous match-ups for heavyweight titles all over the country. Every time she visited, Kirby liked to go upstairs, look at my posters and steal my clothes, as she did just now.

"Yeah, a friend got me some copies of a few Foreman scans."

I admired the new posters for the third time that day as the girl next to me lifted her leg off the chair and spun on the toes of her left foot in a classic ballet pose. I chuckled as she spun around what must have been six times, she can be at this for a while. Her mom told me it has to do with weight shift, so it must me like chain punching. Except it flashes more leg.

When she finally spun to a stop, bowing to the audience of her own mind as she returned to reality.

"Oh, Sherri said the room next to yours is the biggest guest room."

Indeed it was…speaking of which, I haven't mentioned much about this house have I?

How is this place laid out, anyway? When you first see this place you thing that's one huge farm house. The front door opens into our foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen and library. Go up the steps and you'll find eight bedrooms, most of which have their own bathroom. One for my parents, two attached ones for the twins, and the others are equipped for any guests we might have.

But each bedroom has a small living area with couch, coffee table, television and bathroom. But here's the scoop. When we do have an important guest he or she usually stays in a hotel. These extra rooms are kind of a waste.

The second floor also houses the main library, larger than the other, and the personal gym for the twins and my folks. It consists of two of those rod bending machines, no free weights. Some cardio machines and medicine balls, my folks take advantage of every trendy fitness method available. This is why I work out in an old barn.

The third floor is a good deal smaller due to the shape of the house, there is a promenade on the roof of the second floor which covers three sides of the house, my window however drops off to the side of the house. Which is lucky, if I had to sneak past the security lights on the promenade I couldn't sneak out at night to fly to the nearest haunting.

Then again, I can turn invisible. I just like making excuses for why I'm lucky in my little fantasy world. My room is a bit odd compared to the others. For instance it's not a suite, it's just a larger than average single room. The bathroom door is off to the side, along with the door to the hallway. And the basement is a lab. That's all you need to know.

…yeah, the Latina Ballerina has a point, we're sharing a floor. Ah man, I can't walk around naked anymore. Ah, who am I kidding, I never do anything even remotely like that. I'm just a clean cut, blue collar type who believes in staying clean, getting down to the gym to bust some heads in, and sending every undead creature of freak science back to their realm of suffering. And I like to tuck my dirty socks into a little ball and try to make three point shots in my hamper from my bed. I'm a simple man.

As I came to terms with her being my floor-mate, I came back to reality to find her on my bed again doing yoga stretches. Geez, and I thought I had a short attention capacity. I tilted my head nearly sideways as I saw she had her knees locked around her own shoulders in a weird act of contortion. She noticed I was staring at her one person kama sutra and so she unfolded effortlessly into a sitting position. She broke back into conversation with one of her usual random questions.

"So, how strong are you?"

I managed to keep my eyebrows from flying off my face as I answered.

"…if you mean flat bench press, then yesterday I did 350 pounds fifteen times."

She whistled, falling onto her back and moving her arms up and down into the air like she was doing a bench press. She had a habit of…doing things like that in the middle of conversations. You should see her when we talk about skiing off a cliff into a volcano.

As she rolled onto her stomach and started doing push ups with one ankle crossed over the other, where did she get all this energy from at one in the morning?

"Alan, why aren't you kicking me out so you can sleep?"

…another mind reader in the family, oh joy.

"I'm not tired."

She kept doing push ups without looking at me.

"You need to sleep, right?'

…actually last night I stayed up watching some marathon and come sunrise I felt fine. I'd been theorizing for a while that this ghost thing means I need less sleep. Great, now I have ten more hours a day to waste.

"…I don't need much sleep. How about you?"

She kicked her foot off the bed and I watched in mild amusement as she did a handstand on my bed, she stayed in that position. She looked at me upside down and shrugged, lifted her head to one side because she couldn't move her shoulders.

"My mom says I'm a radiant sun being. My dad says I need tranquilizers."

I chuckled as she flipped back onto her feet, yeah, she also did gymnastics. I could probably do it too, we both rained with her mom and my aunt in martial arts as kids. She became a bit of an acrobat, I became a fighter. Don't get me wrong, I can still squeeze out a back flip every few months.

She hopped off my bed and landed soundlessly onto my rug. She walked out my door and turned off to her own with a slight wave, leaving me alone in my room way past my usual bedtime. My father always warned me about Latin women, they can mess you up if you're attracted to them or just related to them. And now I had one living next to me. Why must everything I taunt hit me in the face? Ghosts, girls, my last name, that guy in the funny hat at the comedy club. They all hit me in the end.

One evening of lying in bed staring at the ceiling comfortably later, I took the bus down to the gym and went through my usual routine. Sparring, bags, stretching and focus pads. And four hours of this I retreated to the arcade machine they just hooked up next to the locker room. It was some space fighter game from the 1980s, the owner bought it so us kids would have a taste of class.

Well, class must mean yelling curses at the little black and white triangle that was my ship as it exploded into a little circle. I sighed, not bothering to pop in another quarter and shuffling off to my locker. I got dressed as a trainer walked in, a younger guy who's been here for about a year. He saw me and walked up as I pulled my shoes on.

"Phantom, just the guy I'm looking for."

I nearly jumped to alert at the name, before remembering these guys referred to me by my ring name sometimes. I looked up and him and nodded, asking what he needed.

"Some pretty little thing just walked into the office looking for you. Says she's your cousin."

He winked at me before walking off to do whatever it is trainers do, probably counting time for a pro or doing drills. The younger trainers never really do a thing. My own trainer was a veteran when I met him. I just sighed, standing up and grabbing my bag as I walked to the owner's office.

I walked down the hall and made a left to see the doorway leading to the lair of the gym's elderly owner. Standing next to it was a girl in tight black jeans and a long-sleeved black blouse, even sporting black leather boots. Now, all this would be good if she hadn't of turned around, yelled my name and ran into me, latching her arms around my shoulders. You realize I'm talking about my cousin, right?

"Cuz'!"

She kept hugging. Geez, did she forget I just saw her last night?

"…eh, hi. What are you doing here?"

She kept hugging.

"…hello?"

I pried her off with my free arm and saw she was staring at a plaque on the wall behind us. After I shoved her off she walked up to it for a closer look. I shook off my confusion as if it were a headache and walked up behind her, looking at the same plaque. It was a picture of me wearing my USA title belt after my last fight. I was wearing the heavyweight belt loosely around my waist, and in each arm I was holding up the belts from the Golden Gloves Division and the International League belt. I even noticed around my neck I'd been wearing that necklace that now hangs over my bed, my trainer slipped it on me after the referee raised my arm when I won.

"…did you like borrow those and just pose the picture at a stadium?"

I rolled my eyes. Kirininia here doesn't pay attention to the finer points of my life. She thought that was some picture I faked to hang on my wall.

"Actually, that's my promo shot that they used in my 'Looking Back' article in…"

All of a sudden these two emerald eyes were an inch from mine. All I saw were two green-ringed pupils.

"…Kirby, please stop doing that."

She continued staring at me in her usual manner as she asked.

"…if you're a champ, why isn't your face marked at all?"

I shrugged, not blushing about or even caring the way she was an inch from my face in a public hallway.

"I don't scar easy, and I rarely got hit. And near the end most guys went right for my kidneys."

I saw the two eyes bob up and down, she was nodding. I stepped back an inch and turned my back to her, hitching my black canvas bag up on my shoulders.

"So, why are you here instead of dancing with Frost back home?"

She laughed as we walked to the exit in the same stride.

"Dukes, your folks spent all morning trying to get me to sign some closure paper. I went with the _gemelos_ to pick up some movies, and Sherri pointed out your gym, and here I am."

Well, that partially explains why she's here. Wait, 'Dukes'? I found later that from this point on, she developed a gradual habit of calling me 'Dukes' casually. She later explained it was supposed to be a synonym for fists, the tools of my trade. Well, I countered with my own derogative nickname.

"Well, let's go catch a ride home, Legs."

Needless to say she broke out into a musical laugh at my newly coined term, en minutes later when we slid into my mom's borrowed van, both my sisters turned in the front seat to look at us strangely. I was sitting there humming a folk tune, and my new female counterpart was still cackling maniacally over one accurate nickname. By the time we pulled into the driveway back home she was on her red-painted cell phone telling her inner circle back home about her new nickname, which she wanted tattooed wherever she could find a space for it.

Thankfully when we popped in a movie later Kirby was silent, watching the screen like the Statue of Liberty watches…well, watches pigeons circle it and slowly cocoon it in feces drop by drop. It's like an Edgar Allen Poe scenario. But back to my now silent life, it seemed the only time our cousin wasn't moving or talking was when she was dancing or something interesting was on TV. Well, interesting to her, I've seen her scoot to the edge of her chair watching the food channel.

While my sisters and estranged cousin were captivated by the concept of British people falling in love, I snuck away to the barn by literally turning a corner that led to the stairs, going mirage and phasing right out the house into my hiding place. I know you want to learn how I wrap my hands and put my gloves on. Don't deny it. Well, too bad, I'll cut to an hour later, I'm drenched in sweat, bobbing and weaving around the bag like a moon around a planet occasionally crashing a blow into the leather/bubble wrap like an asteroid.

When I did finally tire, I shucked off my gloves and bandage-like wraps, stepping back from a bag about twenty feet away and closing my eyes. When I opened them again, my sweat-darkened shirt and dusty jeans were replaced with my black and gray outfit. I examined my wrists, seeing no signs of sweat as I stepped back, swung my fist back and through like a baseball pitch and shot a blast right at the bag. It struck nearly square on the bag, the green glare disappearing into the bubble wrap but nonetheless the bag shook like it had been hit with a bat.

I didn't even stand back to admire my work, I swung out my other hand in another blast. Then another, and another. I kept chaining blasts away for a few minutes until I had to stop in mid-throw, fall onto one knee and just breathe. As I panted like a dog I thought of why I had to. It wasn't physical, nothing as a ghost made your lungs or muscles burn. It was all in my head. The concentration needed to phase or fire energy was like walking through sand with a camel on your back.

When I could breathe normally I decided to cut things short, pushing myself back onto two feet slowly. I managed not to fall over, so I blinked back to my sweat-soaked human self to rest myself. I walked to the nearest pillar and leaned against it, feeling the sweat evaporate off me as I heard it. Silence, for the last hour all I'd heard was energy flying and impact sounds. And now nothing but the sound of the wind blowing through the skylight in the loft. My own relaxed breathing. The nearly inaudible sound of guitar strings being tuned. A bird flying by.

Wait…since when can birds tune guitars and fly at the same time? I quickly went into high alert, looking up at the loft, the only area I couldn't see from down here. I couldn't see through the floorboards, but the sound of guitar tuning was still there. I heard a few high, random notes pluck through the air. I walked over to the ladder, quickly and quietly ascended the old rungs and poked my head over to see into the loft. Do I need to tell you who was up there tuning her guitar? Why is it that our first house guest in years has to invade my life like this?

I sigh, hoisting myself onto the elevated floor as she continued testing string tightness on her dark-wood folk guitar. She doesn't even look at me, she just smiles down at the bridge as she keeps strumming.

"I thought you were watching that movie."

"Back at ya'. It ended two hours ago. I walked in here while you were at the bag, you didn't even notice."

…well, I'm pretty focused when it comes to striking, she could be telling the truth. I don't reply, just folding my legs into a half-lotus near where she was sitting in a full lotus. I built up the courage to finally say it.

"Why are you following me around?"

She kept on smiling at her guitar.

"Well, last night was pure accident."

True.

"What about following me to the gym? Ever since you got here you've been my second shadow."

She plucked a pure, low note and nodded to herself and to her now well-tuned instrument.

"Your sisters are happy with each other. Your parents are just weird. Who else would I follow around?"

I don't even bother raising an eyebrow to that, reaching up and scratching my bangs.

"…it's the ghost thing."

She sighed as she began playing a chord a few times to test the thing all over again.

"Yeah."

I let out a hiss of air out the side of my mouth, too exhausted to defend my humanity.

"So, what do you think? Like a cheap horror movie, or like a well written comedy?"

She stopped in mid-chord, letting her fingers hang on the bridge. I glanced at her and soon found her gemstone eyes directed right at me. Quickly I felt the blood rush to my face, her eyes do that to me every time. She could give Samantha lessons.

"Alan. Look at me."

I slowly twisted my eyes upward to meet the oncoming assault of emerald coming at me. She nodded at my obedience and went on.

"Cuz', back when you slugged, did you ever ask for help?"

"Sure, all the time."

She plucked a string, a medium pitch rang out.

"You ever ask anyone for advice?"

I shook my head.

"Always thought it looked pathetic."

She hadn't taken her eyes off me yet. I felt like I was being interrogated.

"Well, get a glass of water and swallow your pride. You're in for it."

My awkward nervousness washed away into pure confusion as I tilted my head at her. She stared playing the beginning riff of a folk song as she spoke.

"I just watched you throw punches non stop for close to an hour and a half."

She nodded at the silver watch on her wrist as she began the chorus. I just raised an eyebrow at the mention of my habits.

"Then you turn into a ghost and throw those fireball thiugs non-stop for…two minutes."

I lowered my brow into a glare. Then she said it.

"Why?"

Her short question threw me back into looking at my shoes. The beam of sunlight from the skylight had moved closer to us, must be getting late.

Her song began to take shape in the dusty air of the loft as she went on.

"Ghosts don't get tired. Your problem is all in that busted head of yours."

…was she yet another psychic, or does she have a longer attention span than me? This is a girl who finds vegetable seasoning exciting.

"You can push yourself like a superhero when it comes to boaxing."

…eh, allow me to explain. Kirb's accent is very light, she's bilingual since birth but she still lilts her English like Spanish. One quirk of this is how she pronounces 'boxing' like 'boaxing' like in boast. Now, I chuckled at his word before her entire sentence sunk in.

"What, you want me to find a gym full of dead guys and train with them?"

"I want you to do the same thing you do when you fight."

I kept staring.

"What are you talking about?"

She didn't answer. She looked down at her guitar, freeing me from the barrage of her eyes. She began nodding her head in tune to the string rhythm, starting to hum in her throat.

"You tell me."

Right as I was going to tell her exactly what I was feeling, she broke into the middle of her song with her voice. I grunted softly, knowing she was beyond my reach now. I stood up and turned to hop down the ladder when her voice picked up a note while I did so. She began singing about some amazing guy who does something or whatever, obviously the modest type. But I'm not a music lover, so I'm not sure. Then the chorus came up.

"…_he said, he's just, another maaan…"_

I froze, my back to her as she finished the line. I was staring straight ahead, but my eyes weren't looking there.

"_He just couldn't stay down, rising back each time…"_

I didn't move. I suddenly smelled something drifting under my nose. The lingering smell of sweat, melted butter and a hint of fine American beer. This was what I smelled every time I ducked through the ropes into the ring. I remembered the faces in the crowd as I remained a statue in the loft. That voice behind me went on. I sounded somewhat like a ballad. I'm not sure what all the words were, but these were the lines that got me.

"_They say he came back like a phantom…"_

My eyes closed, and all I saw was the crowd roaring as the referee held up my glove.

"…_came back like a Phan-tom…"_

That phrase phased out until the notes finally winded down.

"…_He came back…like…a Phantom…"_

She drew out 'Phantom' for ten seconds in her soprano voice. After the notes ended I opened my eyes again, the crowd and the ring replaced with the wooden walls of the barn.

I slowly turned to see Kirby examining her plain, not even manicured nails as her guitar sat on her folded legs.

"…you write that?"

Shem shrugged, still examining her pinkie nail.

"Haven't written it down, all up here."

She tapped a finger against her forehead before examining the nail on that one, too. I thought of how much she resembled a cat as I asked.

"…when did you write it?"

She didn't look at me, I was a bit thankful. I can stare down the undead, but those eyes of hers…

"While I was pretending to watch that movie."

…she's weird enough to be a Fenton…

"I got the idea a few months ago. I went with some friends to watch my friend's brother fight down in the city, he was a boxer for maybe a week. We stayed for the last fight. Turns out you were fighting that night."

I sighed, closing my eyes. I remembered that exact night. But I didn't know she was in the audience.

"…that was _my _last fight, too."

I heard her nod, she had a silver necklace that made a bit of noise so I heard it with my eyes closed.

"I got my paws on some of your old fights on recording. They call you that for a reason. Every time the other guy beat you into a bloody pulp, crushed your body and spirit, you went down and he knew you wouldn't get up. The guy always turned and walked off to his corner. He only turned back because the crowd went wild. And there you stood, reborn and ready for a rematch."

I opened my eyes again, crouching down into a sitting position and looking at the floor.

"That's just what the fans say…"

"They say it because it's true."

I heard her sling her guitar back over her shoulders by the denim strap, I got up and walked toward the ladder, she followed. As I clambered down the rungs, she did so with some difficulty carrying her guitar. Eventually we wandered back up to the house in silence. We went to our respective rooms and the night passed without us seeing each other, we had our own bathrooms and food supplies, why walk out and risk running into a Fenton?

The next day I woke up to find Kirby's door closed, my sisters rooms empty, and my parents cars were gone. I made myself a modest breakfast. Actually, odd as it is I actually slept that night, most nights I have to lie there. This ghost thing bust still be developing, oh joy.When I came back up to my room I heard some guitar notes coming from behind Kirb's door. I figured she must be practicing, so I kept walking into my room.

I was laying on my bed reading when Grandma walked by in the hallway.

"Mornin' Alan."

"Hey Grandma,"

I read two more pages before it hit me. Wait…Grandma! I jogged down the steps in a flash and found her sitting in the living room unpacking a small bag.

"When did you get here?"

She kept unpacking some shopping bags on to the couch. She only came near this area to stop.

"…just passing through. When I got here your folks and sisters were gone, you were asleep, and there was a Latin girl dancing around in your kitchen making toast."

I sat down in an easy chair.

"…eh, she's a relative on mom's side."

Samantha looked at me with an odd smile as she finished unloading shopping bags. Since when do Gothics like shopping? Sure she buys creepy, dark things but she shops more than most cheerleaders.

"Like heck she is. I just spent three hours getting to know her. I told her myself if she wants to go by the Fenton name she can, we need more girls like her."

...I blinked, not bothering to question how an elderly Gothic woman could befriend a flighty dancer type. Before I could even try the dancer herself, dressed in a red leotard and a pair of my old cutoffs, slid down the banister and landed on the floor on one foot. She waved to me with her lifted foot before literally waltzing over to the couch and sitting next to Grandma, picking up the remote and clicking on the TV.

"Hey Alan, your grandmother is awesome."

I just stared blankly as my awesome grandmother chuckled.

"Please, call me Sam."

They started talking about how Kirby had played a few songs for her upstairs, so that's what those notes were. Out of nowhere my grandmother spun in her seat and shot two violet bullets at me in one glance.

"…she played that song she wrote about you…what do you think of it?"

By the time she was done speaking I was nothing but two feet going up the stairs. I heard her sigh s I rounded the corner.

"That boy can take a board to the head, but when you give him a compliment he slips it like a jab."

Author's Note

...did you honestly think I'd let Alan develop an easy day-to-day routine with nothing to mess it up? Things change, you have to roll with it. Some of you are probably wondering where Kirby came from. She's based on a number of people I've met back when I worked in theater. I created her to be yang to Alan's yin. Completely different in some aspects, but came out similar at both ends of the spectrum. So, how about that song? I have it all written out somewhere, not sure where. I wrote it myself, so don't try to delete this.And for those who review this, I need serious feedback on my characters, I'm just that kind of writer.


	5. Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

"Ghost Boy, you've just been demoted from floor rug to table centerpiece…"

This was screamed in my direction as he fired another homing shot. I rolled behind a tree, closing my eyes for a second as shards of burnt leaves and bark rained down around me. When I opened them I saw him flying at me, closing the distance I'd spent hours putting between us. The jets on his back were going full notch, sending out light smoke behind him, Yep, there goes my lucky streak.

So, what happened leading up to my upcoming death? There has been a sudden wave of chaos in this little town a few miles by train from the city. By the time I got here to investigate the town has been deserted, everyone evacuated. Every building in this tiny town was trashed. I wandered a few blocks until I saw something in the old taxidermy shop. I walked in there, invisible of course, to find this…thing…stuffing a bag full of sawdust and glass eyes.

By now I have the experience to know at first glance if something is undead. I could tell at first glance this thing wasn't human, it had a bit of a green aura to it. But when it turned around, this thing turned out to be the weirdest ghost I've seen. The first thing that stood out was the head. A white, green eyed head covering in smooth skin. He appeared to have green flames for hair in a straight Mohawk pattern, and a bit on his chin in an odd beard. His eyes were blank, like a machine but the molded face moved around as if it were alive. The eye color only confirmed that this thing was long dead.

But it's not his head I was worried about. I thought at first he was covered in old Medieval armor or the like. Ever part of his seven foot frame is covered with jointed plates of black metal. This high-tech armor plating is accented by several glowing green computer displays on the wrists and on his loaded belt, with a stylized 'S' for a buckle. His gigantic hands were covered in black mesh gloves, his boots were spiked on the toe and provided armor plating for his entire leg area. This guy was a loaded pocket knife, but I imagined that thing was too heavy to move around in comfortably.

It gets better. While I was standing there invisible, he looked around holding his bag of stolen goods and when his dead eyes flicked over me, he did a double take. His eyes changed to a deeper green color, I figured out later he has a scan built into his head. He just smiled, showing some crooked metal teeth before pointing his free arm at me, deploying a spring loaded cannon deal and firing a green, obviously paranormal based blast right at my head. I had to dodge so fast I lost concentration and went visible, quickly flying straight through the wall and out over the top of the town. Hey, would you want to take this guy on?

Get this, his back popped out two wings and a small jet engine. He can fly nearly as fast as I can with a bit more maneuvering potential. And he can shoot and fly at the same time, oh boy.

So it was an air chase for two hours. Every time he got close, before I charged off, he started talking. I'll save you twenty lines of shouted dialogue.

He thinks I'm Danny. I'd believe it, from the neck up I could pass as him from a slight distance. I've been told it's my size and wardrobe that sets me apart from him. These ghosts just figure he went shopping after he came back from the dead, and tried a few steroid for kicks. This guy always kept bragging about his little suit. Said he had to scrap his old one after 'our last encounter', and this model had been in storage for months before he tracked me down. Well, before I tracked him down actually.

He even started showing off the features, usually as he fired them at me. Enhanced flight capabilities, superhuman strength provided by cybernetic hydraulics, self-aiming ecto-plasma cannons, three-way scanning capabilities and wireless broadband internet access in select areas. I'm guessing he can't turn invisible, even though that would complete the illusion of that sci-fi movie that he's hopelessly ripping off. Rhymes with Credator. Eventually he demonstrated his homing shots, and I had to dive through a wooded park. And here we are, about to go close combat.

I watched him descend onto his armored boots with his tree stump arms crossed, his jets switching off and folding back into his suit. He smirked at where I was standing my ground next to a smashed tree, and he stomped over. And I mean stomped, he left footprints in the grass when he waked in that suit of his.

"Well, finally ready to take it like a ghost man…"

I let my eyebrow rise up, I swear I wake up and its already raised, it's my neutral facial expression lately.

"I wrote an email stating my entire plan while I was flying, just sent it to you."

He stared blankly at my sarcasm. I was trying to get him to attack so I could take the defensive, but he just stood there. Then, in a moment that still haunts me, squealed like a little girl, popped open a screen on his arm and started looking for his email, dancing in place and sounding like a boy scout troop as he did so in those two-ton boots. I just stared, slack jawed as he yelled that he found it. Then his metal face went blank as he looked at the screen.

He stayed like that for ten minutes. I eventually built up the courage to go invisible, sneak up and look at his arm screen. It was an email box. Loaded with 8,7999 spam messages to date. I whistled, still invisible.

"Wow, that fancy broadband has its bad side, eh?"

The next thing I knew I was standing there, covered in scraps of metal and cloth, ashes and bits of plastic raining down from the sky onto the burnt circle of grass I was standing in. I thought it over, realizing he'd…exploded. I looked around at the pieces of his body, eventually finding part of his now inanimate head. I picked up the skull half, holding it at arm's length in front of me.

"…the dangers of spam messaging only reveal themselves after the venom is in motion…"

Best said in a British accent. I then chucked his head over my shoulder, stepped forward to leave and stepped right into what I believed was dog defecation. I cursed, pulling a plastic bag out of my back pocket, leaning down to scrape it off into the bag with my hand inside it before flipping it out and looking around for a trash can. I have a dog back home, do the math.

When I found a can and went to chuck the stuff in, I realized there were muffled screams coming from the bag. I looked at the bag for the first time, over the years I've developed a habit of not looking at the contents of these doggie bags.

…there was a little green blob with a face, squished inside the bag and glaring at me with a pathetic expression. I slowly blinked, making sure this wasn't a drug hallucination as I cleared my throat.

"…you talkin' to me?"

The little face growled lightly through the plastic, I'd already sealed the air seal on the top of the bag.

"You win this round, Ghost Boy…I thought you'd grown weaker over the years but you've maintained your wit quite well…spamming my suit into self destruct, genius!"

…which to ask first. This tiny, gooey thing was the guy in the suit? It thought I blew it up on purpose? It thinks I'm the same Halfa he knew years ago? Instead I ask the obvious.

"…so, you're the ghost of dog defecation who haunts an old battle suit and collects rare animals for no real purpose except to decorate your house with…"

The little green blob nodded, now smirking arrogantly and flashing those same crooked teeth.

"Pretty much. But one day the world shall tremble at the name of Skulker…the Preda…"

Before he could say the name of that sci-fi movie he ripped off, I shrugged and chucked him, trapped in the lunch baggie, into the garbage can and slammed the lid down. I'm no litter bug, after all.

2 Hours Later

"…he really should have put a spam filter in there…"

I nodded, sipping my drink.

"Would've saved me the job of scooping him up like one of Frost's lesser qualities."

Kirby laughed into her custom mixed drink, managing not to spit out any of the 50-cents worth of light alcohol. We were sharing a two-seater next to the wooden stage of a middle class karaoke bar the ranchers around here drink at. I personally avoid alcohol like the plague, but somehow it's 7 PM, I'm dressed in a nice sleeveless shirt only a size too small, and Kirby is sitting across from me in a purple and red tank top/shorts combo (…her own wardrobe finally came by UPS, no more stealing from my closet) that was about six sizes smaller than the legal limit.

I'm not sure how she got me here, I more or less passed out after recovering from the Skulker deal. But hey, broke my flying speed/duration personal best. She must have taken advantage of my zombie-like state to drag me out to this bar, stick me with a fountain drink while she tests the bar-girl's mixing talent, all so she can sing a few songs without men hitting on her afterwards. See? I have a purpose after all. I'm the white guy on steroids people see those hot Latin girls with. They're not going out with me, I'm just around so they can have a little circle of personal space.

Right as the digital watch on Kirb's wrist clicked to seven, people stared moving from the bar over to the tables around the stage. A DJ unpacked a laptop and plugged it into the sound system, opening a database of songs with the words removed for people to sing with. The first singer up was a high-pitched sounding woman who was already drunk. A few people clapped when she fell off the stage, including myself. A few bad songs later Kirby snuck up and took the mike from the stand, warning everyone she wasn't that good. A few men laughed as the tune she selected started playing.

…she was up there all night. She didn't even look at the words bouncing by on the screen in front of her, she just used this stage for her own singing act. The patrons didn't care, and they kept yelling out requests after every applause. She did a few pop songs but stuck to mostly older songs with meanings no one got anymore. I just leaned back in my seat and enjoyed the show. Towards the end somebody gave her a wireless mike and she started dancing by ear. This was why she brought me along, if she came by herself or with the twins these farmers out here would go nuts at her.

Her last song of the night was some country song, I never heard the name but it was a ballad about coming back to your hometown, to the people who made fun of you, and waving your platinum album in their face. The middle chorus has a line about being too nice to get the girl. As she swing her shoulders to one side and back with the beat, she scanned the audience and winked right at me while the line rang out through the sound system. I just rolled my eyes, pretending to be anyone but her cousin was going to be second nature to me after a week or so.

She hopped off the stage at around eleven, four hours of songs and she didn't look phased. By then everyone was a bit too drunker than being able to enjoy the music, but not yet drunk enough to throw a car at the stage. We ducked out the side door into the parking lot, this little bar was two miles down the road from out ranch so we walked instead of risking borrowing a car from my parents and having to talk to them. I usually can handle casual conversation, but in the three days Kirb has been here they've been going nuts.

Kirby just chatted away to either herself or me for a mile or so, I never got a word in. She just walked next to me, sometimes walking backwards, sometimes jogging, and once I caught her going through the motions of a waltz sans a dance partner. All while talking about music. Or the way her guitar needs new strings but there are no music places around here. Then she mentioned how she wanted to lose weight, but didn't want to diet or work out.

Now here's where I draw the line.

"…Kirb'?"

She looked at me upside-down, she was walking on her hands next to me.

"Yeah?"

"You're talking to a guy who's qualified to be a personal trainer in fifty three states. And I'm telling you right now. You're nothing but slightly developed muscles, thicker than usual skin, and the minimum amount of fat and even that's just because you're a female and require the extra stored energy. If one more girl I know starts calling herself fat, I'll personally break her diet by shoving Oreos down her throat."

She flipped effortlessly onto her feet as I began, and paid close attention, her mouth open slightly giving me a view of the way she chewed on her lips when she was thinking. She didn't even react to my threat of Oreo shoving if she ever even _thought_ of doing anything stupid to lose weight.

"…so, it would kill me to have a smaller ass?"

I just sighed and rubbed my eyes with my left hand.

"You're Latino, it's just the way your genetics work. You got lucky as you are, you could have been built like my mom."

She visibly shivered, clutching her sides and wincing. I went on.

"…besides, some women are proud of that. Like that Jello girl back around the turn of the century."

Kirby stopped chattering teeth to blink, raise both drawn on eyebrows and ask.

"…you mean J-lo…?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, that one."

She closed her eyes thoughtfully and shrugged, turning to keep walking. The lights of the ranch were visible now, those security lights we put up make it heck to have a dark room at night. I walked along looking at my shoes when I heard my traveling partner ask.

"…can't you _fly_ us back?"

I carried out a reflex, looking around for anyone who would hear us before shaking my head.

"I must have clocked a few hundred miles an hour today, I'm laying off the ghost stuff until I get my energy back."

She tilted her head at me like a cat.

"You have to recharge?"

I shrugged.

"No, I just like to rest every once in a while. I could probably stay in that form for a long time, I just stay this way in my spare time so I can relax a bit more."

I heard her voice behind me, she must have slowed down.

"…are you by any chance less alert when you're zonked out?"

I shrugged again, my shoulders felt heavy from my long day. I hoped that would answer her question.

"Alan, I've been riding on your back for a half mile now and you haven't said a thing."

I looked down at her legs wrapped twice around my waist and her arms around my neck.

"Meh, caught on about ten minutes ago, I'm just polite."

She laughed the whole way back, riding on my back and cracking jokes about hooking me up with a girl who needs a nice guy. I just rolled my eyes and pretended to listen.

She hopped off my back after three flights of steps up to our floor of the house, where she bid me goodnight and went to her room to do whatever it is she does when she's not bugging me or sleeping. As for me, I had some work to do.

13 Hours Later

I'd been sitting at my desk for a few hours flashing by websites and archives I'd built up in the last couple months. Currently my desktop was a collage of black and white pictures taken from old newspaper archives. Every frame was a person involved in what my life has become.

The top of the screen showed three school pictures from Amity Park High School. Danny Fenton, Samantha Manson, and Tucker Foley. Below them was the Fenton family portrait, I'd cropped out a few members to just show Maddie and Jack Fenton. And right at the bottom of them all were two mug shots from leading business magazines. Vlad Masters, and his junior. Both smiling at the camera with the same Hollywood smirk.

Connecting all the pictures were color-coded lines I'd drawn in with my mouse. A blue line connected the three at the top, while red connected the Vlads, Danny, and Jack. A pink like connected Danny and Sam, Jack and Maddie, and a dashed pink line between Vlad and Maddie. It had taken a few weeks, but I'd managed to graph out the lives of these people.

I began opening up several web browsers at a time, reading old articles from magazines about the background of the Fentons. I'd ask my parents, but I've found out more from the internet than from their old stories. For instance, they told me Jack Fenton was a revolutionary and a genius. According to his yearbook from high school, he was most likely to win the lottery and spend the money on more lottery tickets. They say Maddie Fenton was on par with her husband. Well, her interviews show she carries her husband on her back all the time. Considering his weight problem, this was not an easy marriage.

It seems there's a Fenton my folks neglected to mention. Jazz Fenton, who would be my great-aunt. She avoided the media attention, and became a medical researcher at a university in England.

I flashed forward a few sites to check out Danny and Sam after high school. Both attended the same college, majoring in Literature and Alternative Science respectively. Danny partially followed the Fenton path, by writing a few fiction books about ghosts. They are now renowned comedies, despite being marked as horror. Sam became a high school teacher, retiring early after Danny when they were in their early thirties. I still remember my grandmother teaching me to read when I was younger. The schools said I'd never read, but Samantha tutored me and found out I learned different from the other kids. I don't have an actual learning disorder, I just needed to learn things independently.

As for Danny's disappearance, it happened around September when my father was around four. According to the papers he went out to the store and never came back. According to Sam, Vlad had been tracking them down, and Danny went out to face him after years of running. Either way, he never came home. After two years, his status was changed to legally dead.

When I looked up my parents I found nothing I haven't heard before. They have no connection, legal or social, to Danny or Vlad. My father is just an off-shoot ghost hunter, riding on his family name to sell out. My mother, a ghost expert who wanted that name for herself as well, eventually falling in love and marrying him. On a whim, I sipped my third soda that was sitting on my desk and looked up their children. By the time the page loaded I'd spat the soda back into the can, crushing it at the same time. According to this article, my parents only had two girls.

The third sentence mentioned a son who died young. I quickly looked into the mirror next to my laptop, just confirming before looking back at the article.

…so, was I shocked to learn I was dead? Actually, I thought my folks stopped telling people that myth years ago. I'm very alive, don't freak out. But when I told my folks when I was ten or so that I didn't want to be like them, they started ignoring me, focusing on the twins. My father was ashamed enough to tell a magazine I'd died of a mysterious disease, and that they sometimes contact me through their ghost lab. Not a single newspaper or magazine believed it. I killed the rumor when I made it big in boxing, sometimes you'd pass a newsstand and see two magazines next to each other, one about the Fentons, one about Alan Fenton. No relation.

I'm going to be honest with you. My fighting style, last name and family history are the only reasons they call me the Phantom. It's an inside joke about my family saying I'm dead. It's my way of telling my father, you're not fooling anyone.

I admit James Fenton is a bit off in the head. Sometimes they're shooting a documentary with my folks on the couch in the living room. He says it was a terrible day when my vitals dropped in the intensive care ward. Look closely at the background, I'm sipping a milk shake and waving at the camera. A lot of people thought I was a ghost for a while, until I did interviews after every big fight I had. Thankfully my mother is the sane one and tells reporters not to put that in. Just like the Fentons of the past, the wife is king. Long live the king.

I closed the browser group and the picture gallery when I heard some one coming up the steps. The twins, having nothing to do with their new independent lives after a week of no school, often walked up here to talk to Kirby. I have nothing against my sisters, as you know. We're just very different people with not much in common.

I swiveled in my chair as the steps got closer, flicking on the flat screen to a boxing match to look natural. I heard the steps keep going behind me, just as I expected they would. What I didn't expect was to feel a chin plant itself atop my head and feel some one leaning on the back of my chair.

"Mornin', Dukes."

I just let my eye twitch, she couldn't see it thankfully.

"Don't you have…somewhere to go? A concert, a dance thing, some tree to sing a song to?"

That Spanish laugh, howling right above my ears.

"Why aren't you at the gym?"

I shrugged, she kept resting her chin on my head as I watched the boxing match.

"The hours are a bit weird in the summer. And I'm not going to let you shadow me for three days in a row."

A childish groan.

"Come on…your folks are boring, your sisters are stiffs, and you have potential."

Do I need to tell you about every single time my eyebrows go up?

"Potential for what? Food to drag back to your home planet?"

Her chin slipped off my head, suddenly her swan-neck was draped over the back of my chair, her lips touching my ear. Great, now I'll have cheap lipstick in my ear wax.

"Alan, I saw your tattoo last night when you forgot to close the door, don't pretend to be a goody-goody."

I went pale.

"Eh…pardon?"

An evil chuckle.

"You heard me. You have that black cross thing below your neck."

I winced, closing my eyes.

"It's an ankh…"

I imagine her eyes narrowed, wondering what I just called her.

"What?"

I sighed, giving up on defending my last scrap of dignity.

"It's an ankh. It's an Egyptian symbol for life, it was so sacred only the Pharaoh himself could wear it."

A low whistle sounded past my ear. I hadn't even turned to look at her, I'd gotten used to her by now.

"When'd you get it done?"

I shrugged, bumping my shoulder into her chin in the process. She yelped right into my ear and backed off, I finally had some personal space.

"I got in done in the city a month back, I got the idea from this necklace Samantha gave me."

I kept watching the boxing match finish up as I pulled off the necklace and held it up over my head, where she took it to get a closer look.

"Who's the bird guy?"

I watched the final knockout, and spun in my swivel chair to find her standing there with my necklace held in front of her face, mesmerized by the engraving on the back. I broke out laughing at the way she was staring at it, trying to see the ant-sized figure.

"Horus. He's like the action hero of mythology. His dad got whacked, impregnated his mom from beyond the grave, grew up and killed the guy who did it, and got to be king in the end. He was the only god who was worshipped after Egypt was destroyed, the Romans liked him so they kept him as a war god."

She nodded, still staring in captivation at the tiny bid-headed dude. She was wearing a tiny denim jacket over a black logo tee shirt with low-rise slacks. I myself was donning the same outfit as last night, a blue sleeveless tee and loose-fit black jeans.

"…can I see it?"

I stared for a moment before I got what she was talking about. I shrugged, stood up, turned around and pulled down the back of my shirt. Right below my neck, about the size a golf tee was a bold inked, simple cross with a hoop on the top. It had taken pretty well, I'd had to avoid standing water for a week while it healed over but it turned out very nicely. And it was so tiny if I wanted it removed later on it'd be no major procedure.

I stood there with my neckline pulled down as Kirby reached up and felt the colored skin.

"It's nice. A bit small though, why'd you get it?"

I let my neckline slip back up as I turned to face her.

"Personal beliefs."

She took this with a blink and a nod, turning on her foot without a word and walked back to her room. No explanation or statement, she just walked out. I mumbled to myself about people with no attention span before falling back into my chair and re-opening the Fenton File I'd been working at all night.

Eventually my eyes were burning from the screen resolution, I walked over to the window to open it. My room doesn't get as much air conditioning as the rest of the house, I have to open the window on hot days.

I took a moment to look out at our property, admiring the lack of activity. Surrounding our house was a green pasture, some old fences even though the horses were gone, a black limousine with two scary guards on each side, the mail box, the barn…wait…my gaze darts back to the end of our driveway.

A black and silver limo is parked, and on each side a tall, and very wide bodyguard looking fellow looks around through sunglasses. The one on the right side of the parked car looks up at my window, I quickly dart to the right and press my back against the wall. I start panting as I remember where I'd seen that car before. My shallow breaths come out in a light blue mist, only confirming my fear. That was Vlad's car.

I hear steps outside and I quickly put a hand over my mouth, blocking the blue mist and faking a coughing fit. Right as I begin o hack up an imaginary lung Sherri pokes her head in.

"Alan! Some producer just dropped in! He asked to see the whole family!"

I kept covering my mouth as I replied.

"..HACK! Remember my contract? I don't do media stuff."

She didn't ask about my cough as she nodded violently.

"He asked for you! Get down there!"

And she ran back down the steps, the twins always loved company. Especially Hollywood company. I managed through pure will power to stop blowing out that blue mist, my throat will be killing me tomorrow though.

I take my time walking down the steps, going through my strategy if hings get ugly. When I did finally turn the corner into the living room, the sight that greeted me was more disturbing than if he was wearing my families' heads around his neck like a necklace…

…he was sitting on the couch, laughing and petting Frost behind his white ears and he joked about theater copyrights. I stood there for a minute until he tilted his sunglasses down and noticed me, breaking into a smile and waving me over to the circle of Fentons that had gathered.

"Alan! Don't think I forgot about that chat out in the car. Come on, take a seat!"

I slowly sat down next to my mom, who was currently going through a pile of paperwork. I saw an open brief case next to where Vlad was sitting. Kerri took the opportunity to explain what was going on.

"Mr. Masters wants to do another documentary on us! One that will be in theaters!"

I slowly nodded, not taking my eyes off he young, smiling man who was showing a hundred teeth and nodding as my sister spoke. He looked slightly like his original form, just a bit younger. He must have thought things over before faking the identity of his non-existent son.

"That's right. I understand you avoid most of these things, but after I met you I looked you up. I feel your boxing career would be a nice side story!"

I stared through my poker face at him as he said this. Before I could tell him exactly what I thought of my life as a side story, my mother hijacked the conversation.

"We'll talk to him about that. But we need to showcase a few more things…"

And she chattered on the usual Fenton banter as I kept locked onto the man who was aking great effort in gaining their trust. I knew it was coming, but I sill felt a chill down my back when he broke out of topic to ask my parents.

"That sounds fine! But my records have a blank space, I've found. You see, there are a couple Fentons that I'd like to focus on from the past."

My father boasted.

"Well, the Fenton Museum opened a while ago and has built up a good amount in ticket sales…"

Vlad kept smiling. From my father's angle he couldn't see Vlad's eyes, but from over here near the steps I saw his eyes twitch behind those dark lenses.

"…I'm asking about…"

By the time he started saying it, I had one hand behind my back, cupping a small green flame that I was prepared to throw without a second thought. I was still weak from Skulker, but I could distract this freak away from my family. Before he could say that name, before I gave up my identity and fought this guy to save the ones I care about, it happened. More like _she_ happened.

Guess who came sliding down the banisters into our little circle. My cousin. Dressed in a dark green skirt, sandals…and, that's…about…it…

I felt my corneas burn as all our heads swiveled to Kirby. She nodded at us as she walked through the living room into the kitchen, mumbling to herself in Spanish, snapping her fingers for some reason. She wasn't wearing anything above the waist except for a pair of earrings. When she went into the kitchen, I looked sideways over at our house guest.

His jaw was propped down against his neck, and his sunglasses were hanging off one ear. Before she could walk back through the room sipping a cup of coffee and balancing a micro-waved bagel on her head like a hat, he'd sputtered out an excuse, grabbed his briefcase and contracts and left the front door open behind him. My parents and sisters stared speechlessly as Kirby's feet disappeared up the steps. For ten minutes we just sat there, in a state of shock.

Soon enough we all crept away in separate directions. My sisters and folks wandered off to the kitchen, pretending that didn't just happen and faking casual faces. I staggered back up the steps to my room, stopping in a bathroom to douse my eyes in hot water and tell my reflection that someday I won't remember seeing my cousin like that. I recovered, walking up to my floor, walking past my doorway straight into Kirby's suite.

The large room was filled with open cardboard boxes and discarded clothing piled on ever surface. In the corner was an Oriental Screen propped up, and judging by the shadowy outline behind it she was finally putting some clothes on behind it. I looked around before finally ending my act and bursting out.

"That…was…genius! You saw me ready to nail that guy, you heard where the conversation was going, and you scared him right down the highway!"

I started pacing in front of her dressing screen, smiling and shaking my head to myself.

"Honestly, I'd never have thought of something like that…"

I found myself falling back onto her cluttered couch, still talking and laughing.

"HA! Scaring off Vlad Masters II himself by walking by…dressed like that! HA!"

I fell onto my back onto her sofa, which was covered in layers of both mine and her own wrinkled shirts and jeans. I heard her stop dressing behind her screen.

"…what?"

I finally stopped laughing, wiping off my eyes.

"…that topless trick, that was so unexpected! They'll never figure you did it on purpose!"

I saw her shadowed figure lean up, and her head appeared over the top of the screen. Judging by her neck not having a shirt collar around it, she was trying on outfits behind there.

"…that was Vlad? The guy you keep talking about?"

I stared, my laughter now running dry. I cleared my throat before asking.

"…you…didn't know who that was…"

She shook her head as she held up a tiny shirt and pulled it on over her exposed head.

"_Nada_. I was trying on combos up here, got the munchies and went down for a bagel."

…so that's why she got coffee…and why she walked back up with a bagel on her head…

"…so, you just walked through the house half-naked to get a snack…you only prevented the fight of my life because fate acted through your stomach…"

She was looking down past where the screen was covering her, snapping something on as she listened to me.

"Pretty much, Cuz'."

I stared blankly at her as I got up to leave.

"…oh. Well, eh…thanks for whatever…"

As I reach her doorway I stop in mid pace, remembering something. I look back over my shoulder at her dressing screen.

"Oh yeah, you got me beat when it comes to tattoos."

She lets out a snort of victory as she goes back behind her screen to dress and I back to my room to cry in the corner and tell myself I've never seen my cousin in that way. But seriously, you have got to see that tattoo on her left shoulder blade…

Author's Note

...what's with Alan's tattoo? You'll see in good time. As you can see, Vlad is still trying to figure out Danny's fate, as is Alan. Who's going to figure it out first? You'll see. Will Vlad figure out who Alan is? You'll see. What kind of tattoos does Kirby have? You'll probably never see.


	6. Chapter 6

DISClAIMER: See previous entries.

Author's Pre-Note: Just a warning, this chapter deals quite a bit with Alan rather than the usual ghost of the week chapter. Be patient, or skip some paragraphs.

…that, was the worst two hours of my life. No exceptions. I once went through four prize fights in a row, much better than this. I once got locked in a portable bathroom next to a public park, tried to bust the door in, ad only succeeded in tipping it over. I spent an hour and a half puking into the rising pool of material before I clawed my way through the plastic into fresh air. Still, it was better than what I've just been through.

I'm not going into detail. I'll just show you the end result of my trial. I'm tired, drenched in sweat, bleeding green blood from several places and the only thing left of my jacket is a piece of folded leather around my neck. I'm flying in a shallow zig zag over the farms of my home town, too tired and beaten to fly right. The holes in my dark pants flap in he wind silently, along with the section of a tee shirt I have left.

I weakly smile, seeing my house coming up ahead, as usual it was the middle of the night, but the only lights in the house came from the third floor. I winced as I went invisible, passing through the security lights and the barn loft, straight through my window without looking.

…an inch before going through my closed window, I stopped when I heard something. I looked and had to do a double take. My room was full of teenage girls. My room. Not Kirby's or the twins, my room. The light was turned off and my vision blurry in both eyes, but all five figures were outlined in a blue glow of a television coming from the corner.

I decided not to risk walking through their line of sight invisible, so I used the last of my energy to swoop over to the next window, diving into Kirby's empty living room and going solid/human as I hit the floor. I tried pushing myself off my stomach, but between the softness of the carpet and my exhaustion I couldn't get up.

I weakly coughed out a drop of now red blood onto the dark colored rug. Now that I'd changed forms, my wounds were virtually healed. On the outside. While they were gone and healed, I usually felt the pain from those areas for hours until it faded, and the next time I shift the marks are gone. That blood must have been sitting in my throat while I changed.

I lay there for I'm not sure how long, too tired to sleep and not beaten enough to pass out. I just slumped into the carpet, clutching my thigh. Actually, clutching what was in my jeans pocket, I could feel the links of the band through the denim.

My savior walked in a few minutes later. I heard footsteps cross the threshold and Kirby's laughter coming closer.

"Be right back, just need some more popcorn."

I heard her feet stop moving. Then the sound of a plastic bowl hitting the floor, and a frantic patter of feet before I felt her struggle to roll me onto my back.

"_Madra Di Os!_ What happened!"

I struggled to open my eyes as she ran to her couch, then ran back to tuck a pillow under my head. I sighed at the sudden lack of neck pain before focusing my eyes, seeing a frantic face hanging over my head, those scary emerald eyes filled with worry instead of the usual air of mystery.

"_¿Quién hizo esto a usted?"_

I winced as she lifted my torso up, pushing more pillows under my back so I was reclined slightly

"…my ghost sense went off while I was walking home from the gym."

I realized she'd been going on in Spanish and added with a dry tongue.

"…and speak English, saves me the thought power to translate."

My joke got me a tiny smile from her, despite her fear, as she ran off to her tiny kitchen area before returning to my side with a bottle of water. I weakly grabbed it and drained the thing. After I got the last drop she asked.

"…you've been gone since noon then…what was it?"

I stared up at the ceiling as I reached into my pocket and pulled the object out, holding it out for her to see.

"…nice necklace…"

She reached out and picked up the golden band adorned with a large ruby in the center, it looked Egyptian but the markings looked Greek. She went to loop it over my head, I lunged out and grabbed it out of her grasp, she yelped as I pulled it away.

I realized I must look wild. I calmed down and explained.

"…don't, put it on."

She gave me a slightly confused, slightly scared look as I pocketed the necklace, my strength coming back a bit from the water.

"…so, somebody put on that necklace…and you came home like this?"

I probably looked twice as healthy in human form, without the gash wounds and teeth marks. More alive, no pun intended. I would have sent her into shock if I hadn't shifted. I slowly nodded in reply.

"I'll explain later. I'm going to bury it tomorrow."

She started calming down, her frantic face easing back into her neutral smile. She helped me get to my feet, standing under my shoulder and helping me walk to her couch.

"Sorry about taking your room, the girls liked the artwork."

I slumped heavily into her sofa as I shook my head.

"…who are they?"

She fell backwards all of sudden, causing my to call out her name in panic. I was too tired to catch her, but then rolled my eyes as I saw her land on her coffee table gently in an Indian style sitting position. She rested her chin on both raised hands as she answered.

"A couple of my friends dropped by for the night, and the twins are tagging along. They saw your wallpaper, and we started going through your stuff for fun. Marylyn found some of your old fight tapes under your bed, I was getting popcorn when I found you."

I stared blankly, too tired to even raise an eyebrow.

"I'll tear into you after I regain feeling in my legs. Get the popcorn before your friends start to wonder, I'll be fine."

She gave me a worried stare, but eventually micro-waved a small bag of popcorn in her tiny kitchen area, going back to my room but leaving the door open in case anything happens. She did so without dancing or singing. She must be really torn up.

I stretched out on her couch, adjusting the cushion under my back and scanning the room for any sign of a remote control. Now, a week ago I'd be out cold and dreaming about those girls who hold up the round numbers at boxing matches. Strange as it is, the last few nights I haven't been able to sleep. I've mentioned how some nights I feel fine without dozing after the accident, but lately I only sleep if I'm near the point of death from exhaustion, stress or injuries. Apparently Kirb's intervention had kept me from going out, God bless her.

Soon enough I found the remote and spent the night on her couch, healing extremely fast compared to a human being, but in my personal opinion not fast enough. By sunrise I was able to move my toes without shooting pains, so I crept down the hallway to look into my bedroom. Yeah, five cocoons made out of pillows and blankets scattered on my floor and bed. I sighed, walking down the steps and grumbling about getting a few locks on my door.

A light breakfast later and I'm outside, letting Frost run around the yard while I sit on the porch. He runs around in circles like he's actually going somewhere, eventually tiring himself out and prancing back over, tongue hanging out, panting and coated with sweat. Speaking of which, this summer thing is starting to kick in. This is a warmer area, in the dead of winter you have to wear a long sleeve tee shirt. And now that the planet has shifted, the sun is slowly hurtling toward us, frying us alive. Okay, so it just gets hotter out, like you never exaggerate. I'll be honest, it's just a climate shift. Florida is actually cold this time of year.

I pat his head as we walk back in, it's barely six AM, both Frost and I are still on an early bird schedule because of my being a boxer, and his being a boxer's dog. I've only been retired for a few months, but I doubt I'll ever shake my eating and sleeping patterns from my ring days.

When we enter the living room he walks off to take a nap on the rug, tired out from his ten minutes of exercise. I walk over to the kitchen to watch the morning news, but right as I cross the coffee table I heard it.

"…you're up early."

I sighed, I knew without looking Kirby was sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, staring at me without a sign of fatigue. Why is she up this early? I honestly don't know. I nodded at her in greeting, sitting in an easy chair and flicking on the TV in the living room. She kept looking at from her seat in the center of the couch, arms crossed, legs crossed, her eyes so tense they were nearly crossed. Man, if I was a cheating boyfriend I'd be dead by now.

"...you owe me a clear answer, Cuz'."

I sighed, flipping through channels. She had a point.

"Fine. Name the question."

I was planning on explaining that fancy necklace that Frost had just buried near the barn, a foot under the sod where it belongs. No one would ever find it, let alone put it on and let that…thing…loose. But she hit me with a left hook that turned me right around in my chair.

"Why'd you stop boxing?"

Like I said, I spun around to see her giving me that same, coy look that looks like a cat that just ate and wants more. She noticed I wasn't answering so she added with a click of her tongue.

"We watched all your fights last night. All 49, fast forwarded through commercials. How many did you lose again?"

I scratched the back of my head.

"…well, there was…"

She cut me off.

"Not one. You had a streak going and you didn't back out to keep it alive."

I winced at the word 'streak'. She kept on, more words that burned.

"Why aren't you still out there?"

I waited for her to pause. I took a deep breath and muttered.

"…my trainer…"

All of a sudden her face was an inch from mine, her green orbs filled with what was either anger of unfed curiosity. She had lunged at me in her usual fashion, I guess.

"…your trainer? The guy in the corner every fight, cheered you on, considered you a third son and never left you? You hated that?"

I felt my brow twitch as she kept ranting. I'd never seen her like this, I recalled later that she believes in fulfilling potential. Watching all my fights had gotten her angry about my giving it up. I stayed calm, though.

"…he…was the reason I had to…"

She once again cut me off, her eyes burning into mine as she leaned closer, her sharp nose touching mine.

"You let some dumb trainer tell you to stop?"

I felt a heat behind my eyes, something I haven't felt in months. Anger.

"…my…trainer…"

I was struggling to keep my voice down. But she had to cut in.

"What did he do to stop you? Huh? Did he steal your cut? Did he _touch_ you? Huh?"

I snapped. I stood straight up from the chair, knocking her a few feet back from the sudden force. Thankfully she had good balance and landed on her feet, her eyes wide with fear at my lunge. I finally let it out, in a loud growl, I was too angry to yell.

"…he _DIED! _ _That's_ what that bastard did! I _loved_ him! He was with me from the start! Every, single, damn fight! _For nine years_!"

She started backing away, holding her arms in front of her. I saw later that I'd pushed the chair out from behind me, toppling it without realizing it. My rant became louder as it finally came out. What I've been holding in since I got that phone call a two in the morning. Ever since that bum from the gym has started going around saying he trained me even though I barely know him. He tells people he's my old trainer. I had one trainer. Had. And never again.

"...we were going for the _medal_…the Olympic Gold Medal…he won it back in his day, and I wanted to live up to him."

I stared pacing the empty room like a caged animal, jerking my head every few seconds as if taking a hit.

"…every…time…I went down…his _voice_ was what brought me back…_I'm _not the Phantom, _he_ was! _He_ was the only voice I heard…through concussions, broken bones and tendons, _his_ voice…"

Tears were rolling down my face by the time I stopped pacing, starting to calm down as I said it.

"…and then I got that call…he died in his sleep. Natural causes. He didn't feel a thing."

My vision began to clear and I saw the toppled furniture behind me, and the stunned Latin girl sanding in front of me with her mouth open in shock. Her once cruel, demanding eyes were now soft and apologetic. The heat consuming my bones faded as I regained control.

"…I gave up boxing the day he was buried…that guy was my guardian angel in there. If he can't be there for my big fight, then I'm not fighting."

I finally felt the rage pass, suddenly feeling the sweat lining my back and arms. I slumped back onto the couch, clutching my face. I had needed to scream that since the moment his wife called to tell me what happened. And now it was over. I could think without blocking out that face. That voice. That smile that he only gave when the ref raised my glove, or whenever he talked about how far I'd gone.

I sighed into the darkness of my palms, not feeing anything until a soft hand wrapped around my shoulder, its partner touching down on my other. I felt the unseen owner of the hands rub my shoulders as she spoke.

"…Alan…I…I'm sorry…I thought…"

I removed a hand from my face to wave it away, not needing an apology. She kept on, just like when she was aggressive. I figured out later she had tried to get me back into the boxing life by using that drill instructor approach. Like that ever works.

"I just thought…that some one robbed you of it all…but…Oh God…"

My eyes were still closed, but I felt her slump onto the couch next to me, probably ashamed of her emotional attack on my retiring.

"…you okay?"

I shrugged, removing my other hand and half-opening my eyes.

"…actually, I needed to get that out…don't be so hard on yourself."

I stood up to go out to the barn, she stood up with me. Her eyes…the edge was back.

"…you're telling _me _this? You just trashed a room because your trainer died peacefully. You act like you killed him!"

By the time she was done and waiting for a retort, there was nothing left of me but a front door being shut. I spent the rest of the day in the barn. I'm not willing to say what I did in there. I just spent sixteen hours in there, alone.

That Night

…I would have spent seventeen in there, actually. According to my sources (…my sisters) my folks were gone the whole day while Kirby and her friends ruled the house, her two equally odd friends left on the five thirty train, And at around ten at night, a full day after that dragon incident as odd as it seems, that Latina Ballerina got the nerve to look for me in the barn.

For a change, she didn't act like this morning never happened. She peeked her head through the old wooden door, sneaking in like a cat. Well, she could have snuck in like a bull dog wearing tap shoes and I wouldn't have noticed. I was doing bag work. The ghost way. You heard me. Well, read me. Actually if you're visually handicapped you'd be feeling me right now, unless you got this as an mp3.

However you're reading this, you read right. I was standing thirty feet away from one of the smaller hanging bags in ghost form. I was firing shots at it, one after another. The precise moment I finished throwing one, I whipped one from my other side. I'd been at this for…about two hours of throwing straight. A bit better than two minutes like last time, eh?

I only stopped my blasting marathon because she tried to climb the ladder into the loft and the rungs creaked. I finished in a classic fighting pose, turning my head and catching her in the act of hanging off the ladder, my night vision gave me a great view of her guilty expression.

"…just getting my guitar…"

She held onto the ladder with one hand as she pointed up at the loft. I nodded, going human as I did so. When I finished shifting, I was dressed in a torn sleeveless shirt, cutoffs, and rather large black boxing gloves on both hands. They disappeared when I shifted, so I didn't bother to take them off when I changed drills. I must have looked like my usual self by now, because my cousin let go, falling onto her feet and walking up to me, the fear of this morning long gone.

She didn't show any hesitation as she grabbed my right glove, holding it up to examine it with my outstretched fist still in it.

"You got better, Dukes. I've been seeing those flashes from my window for hours. What happened?"

I shrugged with my neck, moving my shoulders would pull that glove right out from under her nose.

"…took your advice."

She dropped my glove, sending it swinging back to my side as she broke out into a musical squeal, pumping both arms into the air before remembering I was standing there.

"...I just thought of it like I was back in boxing…it helped."

Without a word of notice, I shifted back into a ghost with a blink of my eyes. She raised those crayon eyebrows but didn't say anything as I stepped to the side and wound my arm back to throw a blast.

I concentrated, then threw my hand out, sending the ball of neon green flame at the far wall. I stayed in my finishing pose, hand still open and stretched as it sped toward the wall. Before it hit the rotting wood I jerked my hand to the side, clenching it into a fist. As if my remote control the flame veered to the left, curving away from the wall and heading right back at me. I stood up straight as it went straight for my head, Right as it was about to nail me between the eyes I reached up and caught it like a mis-hit hacky sack.

…I actually caught it, held it in my hand as I examined the green flame, tossing it up a few inches once like a baseball before snapping my fingers and making it disappear in a flash of green light. I lowered my snapped fingers to see my cousin standing there, once again with her mouth hanging open. Man, she has no fillings…

She came to her senses after a while, closing her mouth into a whistle before she crossed her arms and swung her foot to one leg like a flamingo.

"…you just learn to do that today?"

I nod as I blink myself human again, this time walking over to an old card table and shucking off the over-sized bag gloves. I hit pretty hard, I need the extra padding. As I went to undo the Velcro band on my hand wraps, she was behind my shoulder chatting away.

"…you hurt yourself or something?"

She was pointing at the yellow cloth bandages my hands were carefully wrapped in, 180 inches of spandex blend on each hand. These are hand wraps, boxers wear nearly fifteen feet of cloth strips wrapped around their hands under their gloves when they work out. And about the same length of gauze and tape in an actual boxing match. I explained this to my cousin as I peeled off the sweat-soaked wraps, rolling them onto a spool as I do so.

"…where'd you learn how to wrap your hands? It looks awesome."

…I guess it does…to a non-boxer who doesn't have to wrap themselves three times a day. I finish freeing my other hand as she keeps asking more questions about the wraps. I explain that there are hundreds of way to wrap your hands. Each trainer has a different method. I demonstrated by having her extend both her hands, in about forty seconds I have both her hands wrapped in an identical manner to mine. She smiled at her bandaged mitts, making two fists and throwing out a weak jab into the air.

"Sweet! So, who taught you your way?"

I just stared, she looked at me after throwing another punch, her smile falling flat.

"…oh…"

I wave it away, telling her not to worry herself.

"The first time I met him he showed me how to wrap. He called this style the 'Ramses Wrap', like the mummy I guess."

I chuckled at the literally age-old joke before lifting one of her now cloth-protected hands, pointing to the weaves and folds, explaining the purpose of each one as she pretended to understand. Soon enough she went back to throwing punches, right side forward, feet flat. It made me sick to my stomach, so I reached over, grabbed her shoulders and twisted her into a classic boxing stance, modified due to her surplus of legs and figure. She blinked at the contact, but when I let her sink into the new posture she clicked her tongue.

"Well, some one would make a good trainer."

This caught me off guard, but not as much as the brilliant smile she flashed me under the white flood lights of the old barn.

"…I don't…under…"

She rolled her eyes away from me and threw a much cleaner punch in the stance I'd put her in.

"…I'm serious, Alan. You're a smart guy, you had a good run. You keep getting those scholarship offers from those criminal-ology institutes or whatever and throwing them in the trash."

I just stared.

"…you…went through my trash…"

She shrugged and kept throwing punches at an invisible attacker. I sighed, reached over and fixed her wrist position. I spent an hour with her, introducing her to punching before we both walked out laughing into the humid night, I closed the barn door behind us as she did a cartwheel on the grass, followed by three jabs and a hook. I chuckled as we walked up to the house.

"Why'd you come out here anyway? You forgot to get your guitar."

She laughed.

"My guitar is in my bedroom."

I nodded slowly, understanding her excuse as we walked.

"…so, you just built up enough courage to talk to me?"

She nodded, still holding her fists as we stepped onto the porch.

"Yeah. All that and your folks tried to give me a lecture on putting on clothes around the house."

I broke out laughing as we crept up the stairs, Frost looked up from his pillow on the couch, our voices woke him up.

"How'd it go? The bathing suit area and you?"

She snorted, jumping up behind me on the stairs and I saw both her legs dangling off my right shoulder. I'm kind of a wide guy from the weight lifting, and she must know this because she's sitting on my shoulder like a parrot.

"Well, your dad blushed himself into a blackout, and your mom said in so many words to _guarde a mis muchachas para la etapa_ _…_"

I went pale as she rode my shoulder up the next set of stairs. Yes, I understand Spanish unfortunately. And she just said…eh, it's weird enough hearing that from a relative, must I repeat it?

One Night of Blessed Sleep Later

I couldn't get to the gym, I found out by phone that it was closed on a weekday day again, first Monday of the summer and I can't work out. Even if it were open I'm booked, my mom took me aside, broke out her yellow legal pad and started asking about my boxing semi-feature in their soon to be filmed documentary. Despite the Fenton curse of quirkiness, my mother always insists on doing work on an ordinary kitchen table.

"Now, we could have a crew come over a few days during the main filming and get some shots of you in that old barn."

I shrugged, figuring I'd get some coverage at least. Then she chewed on the end of her pen and said through her busy teeth.

"Mr. Masters said he had some footage of your fights to use, maybe interview your trainer or coach or who ever arranged your fights."

I blankly stared at my mother, who looked back at me in confusion. I was holding back a relapse of the previous day.

"What?"

I just sighed, got up and walked out of the room without a word. As you can see, my folks don't exactly pay attention to things that aren't dead or green. As in ghosts and money, not green ghosts.

I'll save you a few hours of me sitting around balancing a pencil on different parts of my body. Around noon my sisters needed to go shopping again, this time to a mall closer to the city. Needless to say my cousin and I tagged along to avoid more questions from the Fenton couple about their upcoming movie. You know why they want me, but Kirby? I'll explain later.

The mall was pretty bland. All clothing, not even a toy store for me to relive my childhood in. Oh, all that crap and I don't get to look at the action figures and see if their arms are bigger than mine. Do I need to go on about how my shoes need new laces? Do I? You're not interested in my life, you're after the good stuff. Don't deny it. Well, here's a jewel of an encounter right in the food court. You heard me. A ghost in a public place, same time as me. I don't get it either, probability has literally gone to Hell/Wisconsin since I flicked that 'light switch'.

I was so bored I bought a bottle of water from an Oriental restaurant stall, sat down in a corner table and watched the crowd go by. I didn't even find anything interesting doing that. Until I saw some guy doing a pantomime of riding a motorcycle nest to the burger place.

I looked at the amateur mime and the first noun that popped into my head was 'punk'. Your average young dropout from those old sitcoms. Scraggly soul patch what looked like magic marker, neck-length hair, leather patched jacket like a pilot. Combat boots, acid washed jeans and topped off with three earrings in one ear. The kid was also so freakin' pale he looked green from all the veins. And if I could see this from across a food court, he must be even worse up close.

He was showing off his imaginary motorcycle skills to a much, _much_ taller girl who was standing in line, he had walked up to her without an invitation. The tall girl had a baseball cap pulled low over her face, with a very baggy and ragged looking hooded sweatshirt with a pair of fitted jeans showing exactly why she made this guy look a head shorter than her. He kept edging closer and closer, I could probably guess what kind of lines he was using.

The girl in the hat wasn't paying any attention to him. Then he looked around with a mouth full of crooked teeth, and put his arm around her waist. I saw a blur as the girl's sleeve moved, and saw him fly back into a nearby table. The girl kept waiting in line as the stud stood up rubbing his head in a daze, his jacket covered in condiments from an abandoned meal that some one had left on that table.

I shook my head at the scum as he dusted/wiped himself off and walked up to another girl and started the same routine. This is why I stayed single, I have some dignity left. As he started riding his invisible chopper again, I noticed my bottled water run out. I looked down to see the bottle was full of blue smoke, I'd breathed in it while I watched this guy work his stuff. I did a double take between the guy, and the quickly vanishing smoke before getting up and walking towards the stud for a closer look.

Soon I was ten feet away, watching him sweet talk some poor girl. I looked closely at his deathly pale skin. Yep, light green tint to it. Nobody seemed to notice because some drugs these days can do that to you. As he spun around making skid sound effects to show off how he avoided crashing into a tree, I saw a flash of neon green when his face blurred by. Green skin, green eyes, he's a ghost in punk's clothing.

When he realized this well was dry, he spied a girl standing near me and strutted over. I stepped to the side, right in front of him. He kept strutting with his eyes closed, right until he bumped into my chest. He yelled in surprise, backing up and looking at me with neon green fury in his eyes, both ring-filled hands clenching into fists. Then he slowly looked up at my face, noticing the height difference. Usually, guys see my size and back down instinctively. He did so such thing, he spat to the side before growling in a chalky surfer voice.

"Watch it Meathead! I should tear you up for that!"

I felt my eyebrow raise by itself as I looked down at the rather small guy, he looked bigger from a distance. In fact he's a bit shorter than average guys, let alone me. I don't even have to raise my eyebrow anymore, it's smart enough to know what to do. I suggest.

"…how about we take this outside?"

He smirked his chipped teeth at me, cracking the knuckles of his thin left hand, his jacket added a lot of bulk, I saw his wrist when he raised a fist towards my neck. Geez, Kirby has more muscle than this guy.

"Bring it on…"

If I hadn't known this guy was a ghost, I'd think he was so confident he had to be carrying a gun in his back pocket. Or he was an idiot.

Ten Minutes Later

"DON'T DROP MEEEE!"

The scene, the roof of the five story mall. I was standing on the very edge of the building, holding my arm straight out in front of me off the building. Dangling from it, was the little ghost punk, his collar the only thing saving him from the fall. In my other hand I held a green flame, ready to blast him right off the mall. I'm guessing he can't fly, judging by the way he's screaming. And he probably feels pain after five story drops, judging by the way he's crying. I on the other hand was looking bored, I looked like a statue except when the wind blew my silver bangs back and forth over my green eyes. I asked him again.

"…now, who let you out again?"

He stopped screaming to look at me through wet eyes and whimper.

"…Vlad Plasmius! He runs the portal we use, he decides who stays and who goes!"

I roll my eyes, still holding him off the mall like he were a coin I wanted to flip.

"Great. He lets out that head-hunter, the dragon, and the little perverted wannabe with magic marker chest hairs."

He kept whimpering. Now that I'd gotten a closer look at him, he was young. Probably a very tall fourteen year old, hitting on girls old enough to be his teenage mother. Hey, he needs to learn a few things, why not get some information while I'm at it? I asked a new one.

"…so, who are you exactly?"

He looked up at me from arms length away, sniffed back some tears and tried to look tough one last time.

"…I'm Johnny Thirteen!"

I just rolled my eyes.

"…that is…"

A voice cut me off from the roof behind us

"_Not _his name…Shadow, Fetch!"

I spun around to trace the voice, thinking this little guy had friends.I raised my right hand in front of my face to charge a blast, and noticed the kid wasn't there. I did a double take, looked at my other hand to find he wasn't there either.

I forgot about the kid when I saw something black out the corner of my eye, i went to turn my head but it flew right through my line of vision. It went by fast, but this isn't something you miss details about. It was a pitch black, floating creature with no features except teeth, two eyes and dreadlocks flowing behind it as it flew toward the roof behind me. I twisted on my heel, following it before noticing it was dragging behind it a screaming green kid in a leather jacket.

I went to fire a blast to free the poor kid, but before I could the thing dropped him bluntly onto the concrete. I stepped back when I saw him getting up, and looked around the roof to analyze the threat more. Dear God, when I turned around…

Parked right in the middle of the roof, was a motorcycle. A classic chopper, probably a vintage model, black chrome with a number thirteen decaled onto the front and back. Standing next to it, knees bent as if he had just slid off the seat, was a guy about my height with a slighter build clad in a black leather trench coat with pockets lining the sleeves and high-bottomed combat boots. His skin was pale like the other one, but without the green tint that gave him away. His hair was a white blonde, worn down to his neck in a similar fashion o the smaller one, and he was gritting his ( also chipped) teeth right at where that black thing had dropped the little one.

I went to look for the black thing in case of a sneak attack, but before I could even turn my head I saw it swoop at the taller guy and literally turn into his shadow. Just swept under him and became a dark tint on the concrete. After his 'shadow' was back behind him, the guy stomped over to the recovering teenager and yelled in a clear, Jersey-sounding voice.

"…you little _punk! _You get yourself killed trying to be me, and now I have to spend my afterlife with you for a shadow!"

His shadow, hearing this, twitched slightly. He snapped out of his rage to look down and in a soothing tone eased.

"…no offense, buddy…"

Then he snapped his head back up, advancing on the ghost punk.

"You have any idea how long we were looking for you!"

About this time, he noticed me standing there with my index finger raised as if to say something, and my mouth hanging there silently. He looked between me and the kid before leaning close to the kid, who was on all fours on the concrete.

"…get down to the parking lot and wait for me!"

Before he could kick the kid toward the elevator the kid was gone, leaving behind one of his shoes and his jacket. The older ghost scowled watching him leave, before turning to me finally, squinting as if he knew me.

"Saw you shakin' him down, what was he up to this time?"

…now, I'd crack something sarcastic here. I wanted to. But I just saw a shadow a half size bigger than me flick around faster than I could turn my head. Note to self, don't mess with the bike guy. Hey, how'd get a bike up here? I just rolled my shoulders.

"The kid wanted to take an argument to the street. He tried to blast me with a cheap shot, he wasn't aware I'm one of you."

The guy stepped closer, his sagging jeans brushing the cement. He was looking at me as if he was trying to remember if he knew me. I got a close look at his eyes, bright green.

"…you're that Halfa…"

I don't visually react as he remembers 'my' title. He snapped his fingers and pointed, it all came back to him.

"Yeah! The redhead in Amity Park! Everybody said you were dead!"

I didn't even bother to cock an eyebrow.

"…what tipped them off, the hair or the eyes?"

Surprisingly enough, the guy laughed, slapping himself in the stomach before looking at me with a friendly posture.

"Man, where you been? After you helped my girl out of the portal we lost touch."

I managed not to stare blankly. Well, he thought I was Danny, who didn't. But he was asking about something that Sam might not even know about. I clear my throat, shrugging, acting like it's no big deal.

"Just been around. So, what was your name again? I don't remember faces that well."

He flashed a chipped grin, extending one gloved hand. I examined it for any sign of claws or poison before shaking his hand awkwardly.

"Johnny Thirteen, at your service."

I nodded, acting like it came back to me as he nodded off the side of the building.

"That was some kid who died copying one of my stunts. The punk goes around saying he's me, working on me rep'. If my girl didn't think he's 'cute' I'd trash him."

He cringed as he quoted the c-word. I nodded, slightly getting it.

"He said he's working for some Vlad guy."

I expected a full blown fight, right there. Well, more like the start of a fight before I fly the heck outta' here, I doubt I'd stand a chance with this guy. And his shadow. But surprising as it is, he groaned, face-palming himself with one glove.

"He says that to show off. Vlad hired some suckers into looking for ya', the kid says it to look tough."

Sounded…possible. I kept nodding and smiling, praying under my breath to walk away from this intact.

"That Vlad is off. I never got into the world domination thing, me and my girl are back out here, got ourselves a place out North, only problems we got is the one you should have thrown off here."

I glanced down the edge, seeing a tiny black and white figure shuffling down the front entrance.

"Eh…yeah, he sounds annoying. Well, I gotta' hit the road."

'Johnny' nodded, shaking my hand again and without a word he hopped onto his bike, charged the accelerator and…well, drove it off the roof. I know by now not to scream 'Noooo!' or anything like that. I wasn't surprised to see the thing fly off toward the horizon. Hehe, he left the kid behind, nice. After he was out of sight, I fell onto my knees and thanked who ever runs this planet for sparing me.

After gathering myself together, I went mirage and flew down to the parking lot, taking out my cell phone and hitting speed dial while flying. And being invisible, dead people have to multi-task. It rang twice before she picked up.

"Sam?"

"Right here, Alan."

I land on my feet in an empty corner of the sunny parking lot, still invisible as I talked into the silver phone.

"I just ran into 'Johnny Thirteen'. He said he knows me. Does he?"

A slight laugh from my flip phone.

"How's Johnny? Haven't seen him in years."

I looked at my phone as if it were moldy before putting it back to my ear and asking.

"…he's fine…eh, how exactly did he know Danny?"

She explained it by giving a three sentence story involving a dead biker and his girlfriend, Danny's sister, and true love beyond the grave. Oh, and she got that one guy to put on make up and a wig.

"…a couple years later Danny helped them out, she got out of the portal and they got a cabin somewhere."

I nodded, still not getting it but saying thanks and hanging up. She's used to it. I saw a white van drive by slowly, recognizing my mom's car I go solid, human, whatever and jog out from behind an SUV waving for them to stop. Some one slides open a door, I side in and close it behind me.

"Had to find a bathroom. You girls find anything?"

I turned to the person next to me and saw that tall girl from the food court, hat, hoodie and legs, sitting next to me with her arms crossed.

"Some geek tried to grab my ass. By the way, thanks for teaching me to hook."

I turn to the window and smirk at my reflection.

"No problem, Kirb'."

What was I supposed to tell her? That was the annoying teen sidekick of a dead guy who put the moves on my great aunt before my grandfather helped him out and they moved out North? With a flying motorcycle? And a living shadow? And to top it all off he's from Jersey? No way in Wisconsin. I mean Hell, sorry.

Author's Note

Yes, I've had this planned for a while. In fact I belive the second chapter references his 'old trainer', this is actually Alan blocking out the fact that the wannabe is using his old trainer's joke. Don't like boxing? Then you won't like me, I do commisioned works involving the sport. The hand wraps trivia is an inside joke to my boxer friends, I'm a wrap addict. And yes, Johnny Thirteen has reformed. I always believed he wasn't evil, just misguided by his love. He is also a whipped bastard, you've seen his ball and chain. Speaking of which, I have to go make my girlfriend dinner.


	7. Chapter 7

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries. And do note I own Alan, the other day a friend of mine wrote a joke article about Alen Fenton vs Obi-Wan Kinobi. Needless to say, he will be sued.

I'm not sure how it all happened. One minute I was watching TV with Kirby and Frost, and the next minute, this.

"Are the restraints too tight?"

I gritted my teeth, glaring at the dark metal covering my eyes.

"I'm fine."

The eye shield didn't cover my ears, I distinctly heard loud, clicking footsteps coming from below and right of me. Where was I? I'm not sure. I was restrained onto the surface of a table that was slanted at an angle, think monster movie. There was a bar of metal covering my eyes, so I couldn't see a damn thing, but I could distinctly feel clamps around my wrists, ankles, waist and neck. Once again, one instant I was back home, the next time I woke up like this, and a female voice asked about the restraints.

"Don't waste struggling, this is a hybrid metal. Made it myself."

I really should have been cursing and screaming, but I'm not an impulsive guy.

"Thanks for the advice. Where am I, again?"

Footsteps, coming closer this time and to the left. Sounds like a hard floor.

"I hoped the gas wouldn't cause a memory gap. Live and learn."

The voice was now coming from near my head, she was speaking into my left ear. I'm sure it was a she, I know voices.

"You intervened in a supernatural affair down at the art museum. You don't remember?"

I couldn't shake my head because of the neck brace, so I told her I didn't.

"I see. Well, when I arrived the ghosts were already gone. The only one there was the one you were chasing down a hallway."

I had no clue what she was talking about, but I had a picture flash into my mind with no back story.

"…the ear…"

"Yes, he was shaped like an ear. I believe he was haunting an abstract exhibit."

"He said he knew Van Gogh…"

Hey, I remembered something. Instead of rewarding me with a baked good she continued, a lone voice in my ear. While she spoke I stretched my fingers, feeling smooth metal under them. I began moving my forearm back and forth, easing something out from the sleeve of my jacket, I'm still a ghost judging by the jacket.

"I disposed of the ghost, and saw you come running in looking for it. I hit you with a nerve gas on sight, I thought you were a security guard."

It could happen. I felt something side out of an inseam pocket in my sleeve, slipping down into my hand without a sound.

"I saw you in that…costume and decided to bring you in. I'm sick of you people, you know that?"

I stopped what I was doing at that comment.

"…what?"

The voice got louder, either she leaned closer or she raised her tone.

"You punks. You dress up like Inviso-Bill and scare innocent people. Sometimes you even rig up strings and lights so you can fly and pretend to shoot lasers."

…Inviso-Bill…? Wasn't that…?

"And Kid, you can't even pull that off. Come on, green contacts and a cheap hair dye? You came in street clothes, the other freaks wore the jumpsuit at least."

"…what the hell are you talking about?"

She responded with a cold chuckle as I felt my thumb brush the trigger button.

"I'm not gonna' slip you to the police, punk. You have any idea what a ghost hunter has to put up with? And now punks like you? You're mine. You're not gonna' see the light of day until…"

"…I blow the roof off this place."

With that I clicked the button on the object I'd held in my sleeve, hearing a hiss of air. I quickly went mirage, floating right through the mask and restraints, across the room and flipping onto my feet as my captor stumbled around in the white smoke that had exploded from that canister in my sleeve. That was a modifed tear gas cylinder, one of my aunts used to be a cop. I went solid as the smoke began to fade, not caring that I was in plain view.

I was in a very large, windowless room about the size of a warehouse. The walls were lined with oversized computer equipment, weaponry racks, a large circular structure in the corner, and other advanced gadgets. I saw the steel table I'd been strapped to rise out of the falling smoke, hunched over it was a thin figure wearing what looked like a red leather jacket. I crossed my arms, feet apart in a patent-pending 'badass hero' pose while my captor recovered, her coughing subsiding as she turned around.

…wearing what looked like a motorcycle helmet. Red, like the jacket. Black visor, and now she's standing up, red pants too. Possibly a jump suit. She shakes her helmet slightly, probably clearing her vision as she stands across from me, the smoke long faded. I heard a clear, possibly modified voice come form the helmet, echoing off the bare walls.

"…how…!"

I smirked slightly, my trusty eyebrow springing to life.

"There's a Holo-Halfa in every booster pack of ghost cards these days, eh?"

Her gloved hand moved toward her side, I spread my arms from my torso and cracked my neck.

"…so you're a poser who went the extra miles…for the tricks you save box-tops for, not the bottom of the cereal box crap."

"Hey, I eat my Wheaties."

She pulls what looks like some sort of gun out of a holster strapped to her leg, I summon a flame, holding it above my palm. She did a double take when she saw it, her drawn gun pointed at the floor.

"…ecto-flame generators…big whoop, I have one in my glove compartment."

She snapped off the safety on her side-arm as a second flame alighted in my other hand.

"Probably next to your 'protection', right? Come on, you're obviously a guy using a female voice changer."

Her comeback, a glowing green bullet aimed at my stomach. A second later, my left arm is crossed over my chest, the ball of flame has become a glowing green band around my arm, stretching from the elbow to the wrist, a makeshift fencing guard. Ideal for deflecting whatever that gun just shot. She didn't fire another shot, but stayed in firing position.

"…ecto…energy manipulation…?"

I just blinked slowly at her, she didn't get it, did she? She suddenly fired three more shots, I didn't even blink as I moved my arm barely an inch a time, blocking every shot. Just like the double end bag. She stared again, before breaking off to the side in a sprint towards a rack of large, red-plated weaponry. I raised my other eyebrow as I fired the flame I held into the bottom of the shelf, knocking it over. Before she could reach the shelf, it was on its sides, the probably powerful weapons trapped under it. She slowly turned, seeing me standing there with that smirk.

"…where did you get those toys again?"

I sigh, crossing my arms and pulling up both my jacket sleeves before raising my arms to show my bare wrists.

"Nothing up my sleeves…"

I snapped both pairs of fingers, and with that disappeared into thin air. The person in red stared at my location for a few seconds before letting her gaze drift sideways, looking for me. I walked backwards slowly, not making a sound, walking through the wall and finding myself an inch away from brown brick. I turned to find an old warehouse part of the city, not a car in sight. I stay invisible, flying up, getting my bearings with the landmarks before taking off West.

What? Did I walk away from a fight? I walked away from a killing. That was her turf in there, she probably had enough toys stashed away to blow my head off six times in a row. And I'd probably have to kill her to defend myself. Besides, when you see first hand that a guy has access to smoke bombs, and 'special technology', you'll back off. I think I'll forget to tell her I'm half ghost, just a guess.

I flew to the train station under no sign of danger. She didn't follow me, who ever she was. Ghost Hunter was a bit obvious. Access to ghost technology, nice combat traits, she used the term 'ecto' more than the word 'the'. And the outfit kind of reeked 'something hunter'.

The train ride isn't worth mentioning, but what I recalled during my boredom is. I pieced together what happened before I woke up on the table. Sitting on the couch with the dog and Kirby. Action news bulletin, art museum in chaos…yadda yadda, chasing a giant ear…really bad smell, and I wake up not remembering a thing. I'll go by the mystery woman's word, I just got gassed.

When I got home, my folks asked how the museum tour went. I said it stunk but the tour guide was hot before ducking into the stairwell and scurrying up to my room. The minute I was through the threshold I closed, locked, and barricaded the door, dropped the shade on the window, and pulled out my cell phone, hitting the speed dial. Three rings later.

"Who'd you meet now, Alan?"

Sam and I had a routine now. I call every few days to chat, like any grandson. Except when something happens and I need her input, since I called yesterday this was obviously one of those calls.

"Got gassed. Woke up strapped to some table. Quick fight with some ghost hunter. Female, wore red, she thinks I'm an Inviso-Bill impersonator."

A sharp, rather odd chuckle from her line.

"Sorry, sorry…that name just cracks me up."

I roll my eyes as she collects herself. I thought Gothics _never_ laughed. What, did they evolve into living beings in the last few decades?

"Red suit, right? Danny had a few run-ins with some one like that, maybe it's a copycat."

I start pacing, holding the flip phone against the curve of my face.

"She knew what she was doing, wasted a ghost I was chasing. She thought I was some dumb kid, she was probably going to scare me and set me loose later."

"How'd she find out you were for real?"

I shrug, knowing perfectly well it's a phone call.

"I detonated a smoke bomb in my sleeve, phased through the bars while she was blinded. Had a bit of a showdown, deflected a couple shots, knocked out a few of her big guns before getting out of there."

A few moments of silence.

"…well, you're getting better at this."

"…you know who she is, do you?"

She seemed hesitant.

"Possibly."

I run my hand through my hair, sitting down on my desk.

"Make it quick"

She gives in, and starts.

"Her name is…oh, son of a…I'll call you back later, one of my old students is trying to stalk me. The idiot is dressed in full camo, hiding behind hat bonsai tree in my yard."

She hung up, and I held the phone for twenty minutes, wondering what in the green hell goes on in Florida.

My parents got called to do a presentation at some booked club for some ghost society thing. They mentioned there'd be photographers. The twins volunteered to come along. They also mentioned a dance floor. Kirby's in. And there's a buffet. I haven't eaten anything today, sue me.

So I sampled every hot tray under the sneeze guard, the girls sampled every bit of film that the media crews packed, and Kirby danced to half the songs. But the real event begins in the men's room. You heard me.

I was standing there, against the men's room walls between the dividers. After I zipped up and hit the lever, I heard a click from right behind my head. Then a circle of metal press against my neck. I just sighed, dropping my hands to my sides not because this was a stick up, because maybe I could wash my hands before I died.

"A ghost hunter at a ghost society, go figure."

That same voice added from behind me.

"My scanner picked you up. Must be my lucky day."

…so, Fate acts through my fumbling around for a light switch, Kirby's appetite and exposed body, and now my bladder. I hate Fate. I was still facing the fixture against the wall, she hasn't seen my face, I haven't seen hers.

"Before I do this, mind telling me where you got that mask? It looks just like the real thing."

…she thought I wore a mask of Danny…or Inviso-Bill, who ever? Right when I thought there was a possibility of an intelligent ghost fanatic.

"How would you know, were you the one who killed him?"

The barrel pressed harder.

"Maybe. Oh, and don't try that disappearing trick, my scanner cuts through that like rice paper."

…there goes my escape plan…

"So, mind telling me where you got the stuff, or are you the real thing like you keep bullshitting?"

I rolled my eyes to the side, not seeing her as I mumbled.

"…if I weren't the real deal, that ecto-bullet would pass right through me."

She stayed silent for a spell. That little trivia piece must have convinced her.

"…a ghost at a ghost society…now _that's_ ironic…"

I winced as my joke hit me back.

"Last place they expected. So, mind getting it over with?"

A sound of interest.

"You _must_ be dead, you're not even begging…"

I shrug, waiting for her to just pull the damn trigger. Right as she pressed the barrel harder into my neck and shifted her weight forward, the intercom rang out from a small speaker in the ceiling.

"_And now our Guest Speaker: Professor Gray"_

Then I heard that mystery voice loudly exclaim.

"Shit! …I have to get up there, don't skip town."

I shrug as 'she' removes the gun barrel.

"I'm with the Fenton party, they're not known for leaving early."

By the time I said what party I was in and turned around to face her, there was just an empty bathroom and a swinging door. I sigh, knowing if I run, she'll find me. Heck, might as well watch her speech and not pay attention to get revenge.

I walk out after washing my hands, sneaking over to our table and facing the podium on the stage. There was a bustling of chairs and mumbled excuses before a woman stepped up behind the podium, pulling a set of note cards out of her red blazer pocket. So this was the woman who wanted me dead. Well, fully dead.

She was slightly built, average height and dark skinned. Her hair was twisted carefully into a mixture of corn rows and braids, stretched over her scalp in stripes and dangling behind her neck. Her face, rather pretty and plastered with an elegant smile that she probably faked just for this speech. She cleared her throat, her bleached white teeth flashing in the spotlight before she went on into a speech about the possibilities of ghost research aiding other fields. It's ironic, I could have blasted her right through the head from where I was sitting, or she could have shot me. This is one formal rivalry, maybe we'd wait for a group of schoolchildren to cross the road before we have a streetfight.

She ended to a great applause, everyone at our table clapped out of default. She bowed off the stage, I saw she was dressed in red slacks too, must be a statement. She stepped off the stage and walked into the tables, right up to where my parents were sitting. I guess my folks knew her, because soon enough they were laughing and joking. I sat there across the table, staring impatiently, waiting for her to notice her target.

Soon enough she had walked over to where girls were sitting, greeting all three of them. She greeted Kirby by name, asking how her mom was. Hey, I'm gonna have one hell of a funeral jusging by these twists and turns. When she walked around to where I was leaning in my chair, looking at her as if she had stood me up on a date, she glanced down at me and froze like a VHS recording, still smiling. I raised an eyebrow, causing her to start up again and apologize.

"I'm sorry! It's just that you look like...Danny…"

Golly, I've never heard that before. Holy crap, that portal turned me into something not human! And Adam and his old lady got kicked out of Eden! I knew that bitch was trouble from the start. Talkin' to snakes, stealing fruit, never putting any clothes on...

I held back my wisecrack and stood up formally, revealing I was quite a bit taller than her. She looked me over, obviously comparing me to the Fenton she must have at one point met. I feigned a casual smile, either she was a great actor or she really hadn't seen my face in the men's room. You think I was surprised then? You should have seen my face went she hopped up and hugged me, I found later my resemblance to my grandfather has that effect on some people. I froze for a few seconds before leaning over to her ear and mentioning.

"…do you always hug ghosts before executing them? It's like giving a psychopath a party hat and a piece of birhday cake as they enter the gas chamber."

I felt her loosely draped arms tighten around my shoulders as she heard that. She probably looked like she was just hugging an old friend to the other professors and the like. I was the only one who knew she was probably expecting me to snap her neck like a pencil, out of self defense of course.

Eventually I stepped away from her, letting her arms swing to the sides of her jacket loosely. She was staring blankly at my face with that fake smile, either deep in thought of very afraid. I slowly raised a hand and snapped two fingers, causing her to fix her posture, let her face unfreeze and comment that she had to be going, shuffling off awkwardly to another table. I held back a smirk watching her stumble off like a penguin holding in a fart, problem solved. I told my folks I'd get my own ride home, sneaking out the main door into the block full of dead night clubs.

I walked down to the street corner, leaning onto a lone street lamp and mumbling a prayer under my breath. No one was trying to kill me, I hadn't killed anyone, Kirby is too busy looking for an ice cream truck to follow me around, and I live another day.

"…what's up, Cuz'?"

My eyes shot open, I was slumped against the lamp with my eyes on the concrete as I heard the sounds of some one munching an ice cream bar behind me. I tilt my eyes in their sockets to the side, catching sight of Kirby's shoes behind me.

…okay, that's three out of four prayers.

"…just talking to God, Kirb'. Thanks for popping in, the conversation was getting to be one-sided."

She made a noise that sounded like a closed mouth laugh. I'm not going to ask where she got ice cream in the night club section of town at midnight. Or how she paid for it.

"What'd you say to Val in there? She kept looking at you after she walked away."

I pull myself to my full height, pushing off the lamp post with one arm.

"'Val' held a gun to my head in the men's room."

I turned around and explain the day's epic events, from the nerve gas to the sarcastic crack that saved my life. Kirinia just stood there chewing on her ice cream bar and nodding, her wide eyes making her look like a curious feline that can't decide between entertainment and food. When I finished, she chewed the bare wooden Popsicle stick thoughtfully before chiming.

"Wow."

And she kept chewing on that stick like a cocker spaniel with a bone. I just blinked slowly, my eyebrow has demanded better wages, I refused, so it didn't raise up by itself. Damn Facial Expression Unions...

"…yeah. Wow. Did my folks leave yet?"

How does she talk while chewing on a piece of wood?

"Yeah, party died after the bartender ran off."

I nodded, turning to the street and waving one arm at the few cars that passed, hoping for a taxi. Or some one who thought I was pimping off Kirby who would give me a ride while he looked for a motel.

When some one did pull over, I knew right away it wasn't a cab. Last I checked public transportation didn't use red sports cars with street racing style lights under sides of the car. I whistled, looking over the car that was probably worth more than I'd sell for in white slavery. The tinted passenger side window rolled down with a hydraulic buzz, revealing the person leaning behind it. I saw two off-green eyes focused on me from behind several braided black braids, framing the dark face of the woman who's been out for me all day. I crossed my arms, asking in body language 'What now?'. She cleared her throat, the shock and nervousness from before washed away with intellect.

"…long day, huh?"

I slowly nodded, not letting my guard down, eyes locked on where her hands would be behind the door. She went on.

"…why didn't you mention your last name?"

I didn't even bother to glare.

"…what do you want, Ms. Gray?"

I expected her to tick off, but she actually smiled a bit.

"Hop in. We need to have a chat."

I eyed the door handle for a second, not falling for it.

"…you can bring your friend over…Oh, hey Kirby!"

This monotone, professional woman broke into a grin, leaned to the left and waved behind me, I looked over my shoulder to see Kirby smile and wave back, the stick hanging the side of her mouth as she chewed on it. By the time I looked back at 'Val' she was back to bitch mode. Why does Kirby get the preppy wave and I get the hostage negotiation?

"Bring her along if you feel you need a witness."

I kept my eyes locked and my arms crossed.

"Nice try. Even if I wanted to come I don't think Kirb' here would go along."

Actually, I was aware this could be another attempt on my half-life, so I was pulling out realistic excuses. The woman leaned over again, looking behind me.

"Hey Kirb', I just got a new puppy back at my place, you in?"

I heard a musical squeal and the sound of a car door opening and closing, and all of a sudden Kirby's face was next to Val's in the open window, urging me to get in. Christ, that puppy thing still works when abducting children? And, eh, Kirby?

I sighed, pulling open the door and sliding into the black leather passenger seat, she gunned it down the street before I could click the belt around my shoulder. I glanced over to see our captor focused behind the wheel. Why do older women always have the nice cars and know how to drive them like street racers? My mom knows how to take a Vette on two wheels, for example.

The car was silent, save for the faint music coming from the surround sound and those annoying clicks every time the girl in the back seat chewed on that damn Popsicle stick. The car was top-notch, I'm guessing the interior was a custom. I knew the Fentons made money off ghosts, but this Gray woman seemed to know her stuff as well. If I hadn't known she was a real ghost hunter I'd ask how a con artist sleeps at night.

She veered into an empty spot on a featureless urban block, slamming the brakes instead of coasting. I gripped the seat a bit tightly as we swerved, Kirby on the other hand yelled that was awesome. Why did she come along again? I'd rather turn up in a dumpster in a few days than listen to her chew on that thing.

Soon enough we'd been let into a very nice loft apartment over an old warehouse. Yes, the warehouse from earlier today, I remembered the address. Her apartment was even pricier than her car. Oak paneling, works of art all over, plush furniture and enough electronics to power an unmanned aircraft. My cousin and I waited on the red velvet couch as she went to get something in another room. I guess she liked red. The clothes, the car, the battle suit and now the couch. All the same shade of crimson.

Soon enough our host walked out of a doorway carrying a stack of files and a yellow legal pad. She formally sat down in an armchair and pulled a pen out of her blazer pocket, propping the legal pad on one knee as she clicked the pen.

"First things first, did you inherit the ghost gene?"

Kirby and I shared a look at the question, first an assassin, then a cocktail host, now a psychiatrist. Ah yes, she did in fact have a puppy, a little Sheltie that Kirby currently had on her lap. Well, they called it a Sheltie, it's one of those freakin' Lassie dogs.

"I became a Halfa the same way he did, an accident involving supernatural technology."

She scrawled this down.

"Danny…passed on before you were born, right?"

I nod, I'd say sadly but I unfortunately never knew him well enough to mourn.

"Why were you chasing that ghost at the museum?"

I crossed my legs.

"He was attacking innocent people, what was I supposed to do?"

She stopped writing to glance up from the pad at me, her eyes examining my features for traces of a lie. She had a very similar eye color to Kirby, except less scary and more conceiling.

"…so you're a self proclaimed hero…"

I stood rigid in my seat.

"I'm no hero, Ma'am. I'm the only guy who can handle these things, some one has to do it."

She wrote this down before landing an uppercut of a question.

"You're aware Vlad thinks you're Danny."

I did a double take, she hadn't lifted her eyes or pen off the page. This was a casual question for her. I glanced over at Kirby, who was in the same state of shock I was. I mumbled.

"…not until you just told me…"

I realized we might be in danger. She knows Vlad. She has ghost technology. She could be working for him. Maybe that adorable little Lassie puppy siting on Kirby;s lap is actually Vlad copping a feel with his shapeshifting abilities. Right as I was about to summon a flame and blow the little puppy back to Wisconsin, she must have read my mind.

"This is confidential, Alan. I'm a free agent nowadays, I only know Vlad because I quit helping him fight Danny eons ago."

Before I could ask exactly how long they'd been working together and why, Kirby chipped in without warning.

"…how do you know Danny?"

Without a sign of caring, the ghost hunter shuffled through her papers before flicking one onto the glass coffee table. I leaned down to look at what appeared to be a laminated photograph. It was a bunch of kids in prom clothes, the backdrop looked like a school gym with decorations all over. I looked at the four people in the center, smiling at the camera.

On the far left stood a tuxedo-clad boy wearing an old fashioned cap and thick glasses. He was grinning at the camera triumphantly, probably because standing next to him with a familiar feigned smile was a shorter, younger image of the woman sitting across from us. I flicked my eyes up at her, she was watching Kirby pet her new dog with a slight smile. The thin slant of a smirk matched the one in the picture. I looked back down and did a double take, standing a few inches from the girl was a shorter, fairer built lad about the height of his grinning friend.

His teenage build didn't catch my attention. His face. He was nervously grinning at the camera man like many teens do at their first prom, his hands in the pockets of his rented suit. This nervous teenager was looking at the camera with eyes that mirrored my own, same clear blue color. His chin? A thinner build, but similar to mine. Only a slight similarity in cheekbones, I'm part Latino after all. His skin was fairer, and his hair flatter but from a distance this could have been my own junior prom picture.

I reluctantly pried my eyes off my double to the girl posing next to him. I smiled against my will, I just couldn't resist. Holding a black purse in front of herself, giving the camera a coy look behind artfully painted eyes, was my grandmother. She was wearing a combination evening gown/fishnet suit with her hair propped on the sides like bat wings. Combined with a more elegant make up job, she looked less like a Gothic and more like…eh…a hot Gothic? Hothic?

Whatever she was, the picture was snatched out of my hands by Kirby, the dog had waddled off to the rug and as we all know Kirinia needs constant entertainment.

"…Alan, did you take your grandmother to the prom or what?"

I glared at her as she looked at the photo the same way she looked at people, sticking her nose an inch away and squinting.

"…cuz' dang, she looks hot."

I slowly turned to face my cousin, and gave her a look that would kill a small horse. She responded with a look that would make a Persian kitten look like Darth Vader. I sighed, shaking my head as I turned to our aloof host, who was holding a thick binder in one hand as she looked at the cover thoughtfully. I cleared my throat, and she tossed the hard-back folder onto the table in front of me.

"Consider this an apology for this morning."

I cock an eyebrow at her as I open the binder with one finger.

"First you want me dead. Then you knew my grandparents. Now you want to help me even though you have no clue exactly what it is that I do."

She stayed stoic, her dark features stock still as she heard me out. She just glanced at the binder again.

"Well, it'll help you more than it will me. Tucker Foley was writing this for years after Danny disappeared. Tuck was coping with his grief by working out ways he could be alive. One breakdown later, he locks everything that reminds him of his old life in a closet, starts traveling all over the globe selling gadgets, and he never looks back."

I leaned back a bit as she mentioned Tucker. I eventually picked up the binder and flipped through a few of the computer-printed pages. It was all typed theories, ideas and hundreds of diagrams or charts relating to the supernatural. I stopped on a page detailing the layers of a ghost portal when the binder's keeper commented.

"Tucker gave it to me when he put everything behind him. His last ditch effort to try and get Danny back. I've been doing this since junior high. And I've never heard of some of the things that Tuck wrote about. Even after we were married for a few years he tends to ramble."

I snapped my neck up to look at the unreactive figure. Wait, married? Tucker Foley? Tucker Foley married a woman? How the hell did he pull that off, and where can I buy some? I snapped the makeshift book closed, glancing over to see that Kirby was looking at a painting on the red-painted wall. I took the opportunity to lean closer to Gray and comment.

"Thanks for the reading material and second chance at life, but why did you bring _her_ along?"

The ghost hunter flashed a rare smile.

"I'm good friends with your aunt. And I've heard how you and Kirby orbit each other. It got you here, didn't it?"

I rolled my eyes as I stood up.

"That's Janet. Well, we should be going, Ms. Gray."

She nodded, setting her papers down, standing up and shaking my hand. I whistled for Kirby to follow and walked down the stairs to the warehouse entrance out to the stoop. The minute the door was closed behind us I checked for cameras, and grabbed Kirby so she was facing me.

"…you _knew_ her?"

My cousin shrugged, still smiling from how cute that dog was. Not going to ask what happened to that Popsicle stick...

"…you're friends with a ghost hunter. Your cousin is a ghost. Don't dancers learn basic deduction in...dancing kindergarten?"

She laughed sadistically, breaking out of my grip and jogging down the steps to the street. I sighed, shuffling after her. When I reached the curb my head jerked up when some one yelled from above.

"Hey, Fenton!"

I looked up to see for one last time the ghost hunter leaning out of her red-curtained window, yelling down to me.

"...WHAT NOW!"

She laughed at my outburst before tossing something down the two stories, I instinctively caught it and found myself holding a key chain with a few silver keys on it. I looked at it for a moment before yelling up.

"What the hell is this!"

She called back down as she closed the window.

"It's parked in the alley. You'll need it more than I will."

And she shut her window without a word, leaving me for the tenth time wondering what kind of nerve this woman has. I looked back down at the keys as Kirb walked up, having failed to find a bus stop.

"Whose keys?"

I shrugged, tossing them to her and looking around for a taxi.

"Beats me."

I spent a few minutes waving my thumb at the few cars that passed by, not a single cab. I had nearly flagged one down when I heard what sounded like a cat screeching behind me, followed by Kirby dragging me by the arm at full speed toward an alley. By the time I could get out the appropriate level of curses and exclamations, I was watching my cousin pull a cloth off something leaning against the warehouse.

"…I've had a day from Wisconsin, and you have the nerve to…!"

My sentence fell short as she pulled the cloth off all the way, admired what she'd unveiled before grinning at me like a Cheshire cat, jingling the keys I'd tossed her.

…I'll tell you right now. The nerve gas, the death threats, the unanswered questions, that Popsicle stick, they were all worth it. Every one.

3 Hours Later

By the time the two of us clomped up the stairs to our rooms, laughing, clothes covered in dirt and smoke, my hair was flat against my head while Kirby could hold her own at a Beauty Pageant in Transylvania. When we both ran out of breath we just just slumped against my doorway, still laughing. She spat out her gum into a potted plant in the hallway.

"_Madra Dios! _I need to steal one of your leather jackets for next time!"

I snorted, waving her off to her room as I slipped into my room to start a much needed shower. Right as I got my shirt off and my shampoo out of the cabinet I heard a knock, I answered my door in a towel. Standing there in her robe and slippers was my very confused looking mother.

"Alan? Where were you?"

I glanced at my wall clock, nearly three in the morning.

"…eh, out with Kirby? Looking for an ice cream parlor?"

She nodded, as if it was a reasonable excuse.

"Ohh…well, we trust you. We didnt wait up for you, by the way. The whole family is already awake. Some loud jackass and his bimbo girlfriend kept charging by on a motorcycle."

I smirked, reaching into my jeans pocket and pulling out the key chain.

"It's parked out in the barn."

As my mother went from confused to ranting and raving, I thought over my day. So, some ghost hunter that knew Danny tried to torture me, then kill me, then analyze me, help me, and now she gives me a custom red motorcycle that can turn on a euro coin going 120, because she didn't need it. My life has been random and without structure ever since I flicked that switch. But this is the first time a chain of events has ended in something positive.

Yes, I'm in denial over having no clue what is going on. But hey, guess how many wheelies I did?

Author's Note

Why a whole chapter on Valerie Gray? Well, while it may have been boring, it just gave Alan something that will put him ahead of the game. No, not the cherry bike, I mean the notebook. To both Alan and the reader at this point, Gray's intent is not evil, just shaded. She's not trying to kill him, but she hasn't helped him directly. A couple acts of random generosity? More like don't tell your parents about what happened. Except instead of toys and candy she gives him a chopper, what big kids play with. The next chapter will go in-depth about Alan's abilities. As you can see, he's starting to differ from Danny greatly. Possibly due to genetics, background or even the technology that created them. No, he's not an overall advanced Halfa. Just a variation. And I apologize if this chapter wasn't as funny, it's the first day of summer and I wasted my jokes on my obese sunbathing neighbors.


	8. Chapter 8

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

"…I'm telling you, Ewoks!"

I grumbled into the gear shift, resisting the urge to whip my helmet around by the strap into Kirby's head. The two of us were clad in leather jackets, hers was actually one I used to wear before I put some muscle on. We were at a gas station along a back-road highway, I was pumping gas into the crimson chopper that we'd decided to ride two states over to Amity Park.

Why not take a comfy, heated car or the van? My folks don't trust Kirby and me with the cars anymore. Well, Kirby. But they're fine with us taking a motorcycle on a highway into an unknown town. Well, because that involves Kirby clinging to my back an inch from falling onto the pavement going 60. One good day of riding and we were pretty close. Then we found a traffic jam of people trying to evacuate a small town. A woman with three children kept screaming that 'It wasn't human!'.

Yep, we made a pit-stop. Some energy being that's probably been around for a while, building power. It had this thing with fear. It could change itself into whatever a person fears the most, hence why everyone ran. I managed to take it out with my 'ecto sharp-shooting', not easily though. It kind of turned into _my_ greatest fear. Then Kirby distracted it and it went back to its normal form. I'm not sure what that girl is afraid of, and I'm guessing it didn't either. As I played grease monkey Kirby was using my cell phone to call Sam and explain why we're late.

"…I'm serious! Alan is afraid of Ewoks!"

I felt my eye twitch as I shut the hatch to the fuel tank and dialed in a code to pay for the gas. She was sitting on the front wheel cover, swinging those legs to and fro while she plucked stray hairs off the lining of the red helmet she'd been wearing.

The helmets that came with this thing had to go, they looked like Gray's helmet. Sure, she gave me the bike and that binder, both of which come in handy. In fact Kirby is carrying Tuckers old notebook in her leather backpack, Sam's in Amity Park for a high school thing and we decided to meet her there and show her the notes.

I finished paying for the gallon before turning to my traveling partner and slashing my throat with my index finger, and pointing to my watch. She nodded.

"Yeah, we'll be there."

She snapped my phone shut, hopping off the fender and dropping the phone in my jacket pocket before hopping onto the padding behind the rider's seat, pulling on her helmet and opening the black visor so she could talk.

"She said the reunion is running slow anyway, we got time."

I nodded as I pulled on the other helmet, sliding a leg over the bike and pushing it off the kickstand.

"Great. Just a heads up, we got a toll booth in ten miles."

I heard a few snaps and zips behind me, wincing as I hit the ignition and coasted out to the highway, dovetailing behind a mini-van and falling into the flow of traffic. We had a system going. I drive, she drive-by flirts with the toll booth guy to save me quarters. Hey, I told you I'd find a use for her eventually. I'm going to Hell for allowing her to corrupt herself with Sin like this, but fifty cents is a lot of money. It's not my first option either, her mom made brownies for me as a kid, this isn't some teenage male fantasy.

Eventually the toll booth came and went, as did the hem of Kirby's shirt, but writing about that makes me feel nauseous. A few leagues behind this mini-van later and the 'Amity Park' sign came up, we dovetailed into an exit and soon enough we were passing the town welcome signs. Half of which had pictures of ghosts painted on them, this town is a tourist trap. 'Inviso-Bill' has had less sightings than Big Foot but this town doesn't seem to know that. Whatever sells tee shirts.

Soon enough Kirby pointed out some yellow fliers for the high school reunion. A half hour of cruising semi-urban blocks and we pulled into the parking lot of what was very obviously a high school. Huge set of buildings and walkways, the mascot's head plastered everywhere, empty football field off to the side. As we arrived everyone else was departing, a steady stream of former students was flowing out the main doors to their cars, swapping numbers and email addresses before driving off to wherever they'd settled after graduation.

We pulled off our helmets, parked where the graduates could see us as they walked out. A few married couples pointed at us, smiling and nudging their spouse at the two leather-clad youngsters on the bike. Eventually a face stood out from the rest as it passed by, her purple make up and pale tone a beacon in a sea of reds and tan. I waved her over, she smiled through dark lipstick as she loudly clomped her four-inch stilettos over the sidewalk to where we were waiting.

"Geez…the bike and the jacket are nice, but the babe's a bit much."

Kirby pretended to glare, sitting sideways while I was still holding the bike up. Samantha kept tripping forward in those heels until she was leaning on the handlebars, examining the gauges. She checked to make sure she was out of earshot before mumbling.

"Just a tip, young ones. Don't go to reunions, everyone's just as dumb as they were back in the day, except fatter or pregnant."

Kirby and I glanced at each other with matching eyebrow jerks before turning back to my grandmother. I spat out what could possibly be a bug I swallowed during the trip. My cousin asked.

"Where you staying?"

Sam hitched up the thin black jacket she was wearing.

"A hotel ten miles out of town. Follow me, I know where we can talk."

She jerked her head at the old high school, her hair flipping over one shoulder. My cousin and I dismounted, following her by a few steps partially because she seemed to know the area, and partly because women can't walk in heels. It's just a known fact. Flo Jo herself probably couldn't get around in spikes.

She led us through a side entrance, through some empty halls lined with lockers, into a room on a corner. She flicked on the lights, revealing an empty class room with posters displaying literature and famous authors plastered on the walls and boards. She closed the door, and locked it with a key from her pocket before walking over and sitting on the teacher's desk in the corner.

"My old home room. And when I started teaching they had me doing a literature prep class in here."

Kirb' and I sat down on two empty desks, pushing the chairs off the imitation wood like we both had in our years at public school. Kirby zipped open her backpack, pulling out the papers I'd brought along and handing them to Sam. The retired teacher took them with one hand and pulled her reading glasses out of her pocket with the other as she had hundreds of times every school year. She raised her crayon eyebrows above the rims of the glasses as she saw the cover of the binder.

"Tucker…? Where'd you find this?"

I crossed my legs, crossing my arms with some difficulty due to the biker jacket.

"His wife gave it to me."

Sam stared at the bundle of papers before slowly turning her eyes up at me, blushing slightly under the mauve highlights.

"…ehehe…did…I mention Valerie at all?"

I slowly shook my head, my face frozen in a glare.

"Anyone else want me dead that you haven't mentioned?"

She shrugged, her blush fading while she flipped open the binder and leafed through the diagrams that still confused me three days after I'd gotten the thing.

"…these are his…not a single typo or printer error."

I swear I saw her smile a bit as she shook her head at a page detailing the ghost portal mechanics.

"That technology slave..."

Eventually she finished flipping pages, closing the blue book and setting it down on her old desk.

"It's not written in code or anything. I think he just kept this as his personal notes, never bothered to explain things he already knew."

I nod, holding my chin.

"I figured. He put in examples of ghosts for each theory. Please tell me what 'Ember' is, he mentioned it sixteen times."

My grandmother snatched her thin reading glasses off her nose, folding them back into her pocket as she replied.

"She was a music spirit. Posed as a pop artist, last I checked she was playing a toilet paper and comb harmonica in Walker's Place."

I slowly blink.

"…Walker's Place?"

She examined her nails, not seeming to care that these 'people' might still be around.

"Warden of a ghost jail, major tight-ass."

I nod, pretending to understand as she finished her nail inspection, looking up at me and looking me over with those violet bar code scanners she called eyes.

"Heard you're really re-making a name for yourself."

I shrug, scratching the back of my neck. She continues, she really was a teacher, she does all the talking.

"My spy says you've gotten pretty good with your energy blasts."

I widen my eyes in confusion at the word 'spy' before narrowing them at Kirby, who flashed me a canary-eating grin. She thinks she's _so_ cute…

"…I put a lot of time into it."

She brushed a strand of black hair out of her eye and asked.

"She said you can create simple objects and maintain them for a while. This true?'

I shrug, extending a hand and snapping my fingers. A green ball of flame sprung to life in my hand, I stared at it for a moment and it flattened into a perfect sphere, sprouting a leather pattern and laces. It then dropped into my hand under the force of gravity. I caught it and tossed it to Kirby, who caught it and examined the slightly glowing, neon green but otherwise completely normal baseball.

"Nothing worth bragging about."

I snapped my fingers again, and Kirby yelped as the ball disappeared from between her fingers. I turned to find Sam nodding slightly, possibly impressed, possibly sitting on a tack. She was never the emotional type. Fiery? Yes. Expressive? What part of Gothic don't you understand? Probably less than me, I don't get how guys can even fit _into_ fishnets, let alone walk around in them.

"…Danny could do that, too…after six years as a ghost."

I did a double take back at the hands which I'd used to make that ecto-ball.

"…pardon?"

"Yeah. Took him six years to use imagery like this. You've got…what, five, six months on your belt?"

I flex my fingers slightly, a habit of mine whenever I count things out in my head. Four…five...the pinkie on my other hand twitched, six. I saw Sam glance down at my fingers, smirking because she knew me that well.

"…yeah, one plus five is six, Alan..."

Kirby snorted, but she stayed quiet during this conversation thankfully.

"Was I right, or was I right?"

I thought for a moment as she broke out of the Gothic act to look triumphant.

"…about what?"

And there's the Gothic look again…

"…when you first looked in that mirror back at the Fentons'? I said your background would make you develop faster?"

"…I was a bit busy looking at my hands…"

She rolled her eyes, I had a point.

"…well, I was right!"

I let her win this one, whatever it was we were competing at. She raised her legs, letting her shoes slip off and drop onto the floor as she assumed a half-lotus position on her desk.

"Speaking of development, how have you turned out?"

Once again, I stared blankly. I'm not stupid by any means, but this whole thing has me in a daze. The Gothic grandmother must have picked up on this, giving a simpler question.

"Er…how fast can you fly?"

My face brightens, now I get it.

"…pretty damn fast."

…I'm starting to think she's looking at me like an idiot, not like a Gothic…enter Kirby, she suddenly chipped in.

"…he clocked 214 today."

I jerked my head around, seeing Kirby twiddling her thumbs as if this was a baseball statistic. My grandmother did the same, but I beat her to the mark.

"…how…do you know this, exactly?"

Kirinia pulled out a stick of gum and ripped off the foil.

"There was an empty cop car in the town square where you had me wait. When you two flew by I used their speed gun thing."

Sam asked in the same tone I would have.

"…those things they use to catch people over the speed limit?"

Kirb' nodded, popping the stick into her mouth and snapping it in half with a click of her teeth. I slowly turned back to Sam, who did the same. We both shrugged before continuing the one-sided conversation.

"…214…Danny had problems with 150."

I whistled, crossing my arms again.

"Huh. Well, any theories?"

…thankfully, she had one. Well, if you can call it that.

"Kirby has been keeping tabs on you for me. So far you've shown no signs of a few of Danny's abilities."

I leaned forward on the desk, snapping to attention. Before I could ask, she told.

"Towards the end he could stretch, shape shift, and he sometimes multiplied himself for a few minutes."

I slumped back to the center of the desk, taken aback. Shape shifting? Multiplying? Now, don't think I haven't tried these. Sam mentioned Vlad could. The thing is, I didn't know Danny could too…

"…he…could do all that?"

She nodded, her glossy black hair still stiff with spray from the reunion.

"…why can't _I_?"

A sharp sigh, she crossed her arms over her formal top and open jacket.

"…genetics…lifestyle…the fact your DNA from Danny has been through this before…"

I raised a hand, pulling the emergency lever to stop the vague train. Now, for my two bits. Hold on to your extremities.

"…I've gotten faster, physically stronger, and am a superior fighter to Danny…but those unique powers he had, the ones that would make me unstoppable, are absent. Yet while Danny had the whole deal, he had less of what I have in some ways."

Sam's face had drifted from an experienced listener, to interested, to dumbfounded as I continued, slipping off the desk and onto my feet, pacing between the desks she and Kirby were sitting on.

"This whole ghost thing has checks and balances built into it. Every ghost I've seen has either uncontrollable power that can only be stopped by Fate or by luck, or raw power all their own. Never both. One's a mind game, the other a street fight."

Sam grunted out 'Uh huh…' as I kept at it.

"Danny and I are something else. We lack gimmicks from a past life, we're just plain powerhouses fighting curses and magic."

I spun on my heel, still pacing back and forth.

"…Danny's ghost side was dominant because it used all its power turning a teenager into a ghost into a…"

Kirby tilted her head.

"…superhero?"

I shrugged, that worked.

"…into a 'superhero' capable of fighting ghosts. This is why he could do things I can't. His ghost DNA had to boost him so much he was more ghost than human, letting him do things that dictate this. I, on the other hand…"

I glanced down at my hands for a second before realizing that was corny and continuing my pace.

"…with Danny, he was just a kid. Whatever's in that portal got him to that level by giving him raw ghost qualities."

Sam's voice called from over my shoulder.

"…and you…?"

I stop walking, facing away from them.

"…when I walked through that thing, I wasn't a normal teenager…boxing and other parts of me life left me with strength, speed, and other attributes at a level rivaling that of a powerful ghost. So, when whatever changed Danny had to work differently. If it gave me as much Ghost DNA as Danny, I probably would become too powerful. Like Vlad. Danny was more ghost because he was lacking as a human. I'm more human because I'm not exactly the guy in the mascot costume who didn't make the team."

I knew without looking that Sam had winced at the name of that man.

"'Something had a goal to make something capable of fighting ghosts. With Danny, it had to give him a complete overhaul with ghost energy. With me, 'it' just had to make me on par with Danny. It did this by supplementing what I can already do with a few attributes Danny had, cranked up with the leftover energy. We can both take on whatever comes our way. He had his way. I have mine."

I slowly turned to the two frozen faces. They stared for a moment, confirming I was done before chiming in. Kirby swallowed her gum.

"…Cuz'…that was…"

Sam continued.

"…Fenton-ish…"

I winced.

"…I can't sleep that often…it was either watch sitcoms all night until dawn, or try to figure out this whole ghost thing."

Sam slowly smiled, the shock wearing off.

"…so, why do you play the idiot card again?"

I shrug, closing my eyes for a moment.

"I don't have to talk as much."

A snort from Kirby's direction.

"…no wonder those cop schools keep sending him letters…"

I snapped my eyes back open, glaring at Kirby, hinting that she should shut up. She didn't, she kept yakking away to Samantha while clucking her gum off her tongue.

"He gets like, these letters, from these criminal science places. I thought it was a college thing until some retired detective called asking why he hadn't handed in the scholarship forms…"

I went to lunge at her throat, but Sam raised a hand for her to keep going, freezing me in mid-lunge. Hanging in mid-air, two feet off the ground with my hands ready to grab. That's the thing about flying. Gravity is your personal bitch.

"…yeah, these FBI guys have a scholarship thing for an academy. They've been dogging him since high school. He used to say he was too busy boxing but now they have him cornered."

Sam nodded, saying that was enough before turning to find me still floating in mid-air, but now sitting Indian style with my hands covering my face. This, is going to su…

"…Alan…you told me the test results were off…"

…ck.I gritted my teeth.

"…I already told them…my parents don't want an FBI detective in the family. They already hate me for leaving the family business. But join the Feds? They'd disown me all over again."

Two female sighs. Why do they keep dogging me about this?

"Cuz', I've seen you work at night. You're an FBI type, get over it!"

Followed by Sam's more…well, correct explanation.

"You're not just another kid with a Sherlock Holmes book, Alan. You have a gift for details. And with your fighter background you'd make a great detective."

I let my hands drop, looking them both dead on.

"…I just had to give up my life because of my trainer. And now my life is nothing but a sequel to some…_comic book_! And now, more career advice…"

I swung my legs under me, dropping onto the carpet and walking towards the door. They didn't try to stop me, I went right up to the door and pulled the handle. Locked. And Sam had the key. I slowly turned to find them both smiling at me, two lionesses with a hyena cornered in their cave.

"…oh…you're good…"

My grandmother bowed formally, slipping off her desk onto her feet just like I had. She walked towards me, the ceiling lights making her purple make up look like dark flesh tones.

"…now, let's talk about getting you a girlfriend…"

I snapped my eyes back to the door handle. With no key in the lock. It was in Sam's pocket, she was ten feet away and closing, ready to drag me back over there. WAIT! What if I phased my hand through her pocket, got her keys and ran out? Hold it…phase my hand…phase…self…oh yeah, I'm a ghost…

"Look, a box of chocolates!"

I pointed to the corner, both my ultra-Vegan grandmother and my…eh…and Kirby squealed and spun in that direction, the c-word driving them into cravings.

While their backs were turned I broke into a sprint, right through the closed door, across a hallway and through a brick wall, flying right out into the parking lot and circling a couple hundred feet over the school, now invisible, and I now notice I'd shifted into full ghost form. Must be the adrenaline. Or ecto-adrenaline. That's a problem of mine, when things get hot I get ghost. Sometimes just my eyes, sometimes I shift completely.

As I lazily floated on my back I chuckled at my great escape. No matter how vegetarian, Vegan or health conscious, no female with a uterus can deny chocolate. This has taken me years to learn. Superior gender my ass, they're just as dumb as we are deep down. They just look better doing it.

I did laps around the perimeter of the school until my former captors walked out to my parked bike and waited for me, having gotten the message judging by what they yelled to the night sky.

"Fine, you win! Geez, Danny did the same thing when I proposed…"

Sam sighed, looking down from the sky to find me sitting on my bike's front tire, right under my nose. She didn't scream like I'd hoped, she was used to ghosts appearing like that by now. I smirked at her and asked.

"…_you_ proposed to _him_?"

My grandmother flashed back a smirk identical to my own. Why is it whenever you're with distant relatives they act more like you can your close relatives?

"The easiest way to wear the pants in a house is to buy them yourself."

I rolled my eyes, but I swear to Christ I saw Kirby take a notepad out of her pocket, write that down and put it back. Women keep notes? As in actual notes? Men just use post-its…

1 Day Later

Sam was nice enough to lend us the floor of her hotel room, we spent the night watching old horror flicks while discussing my situation. No, not that damn FBI scholarship or my being single, I mean my being a supernatural creature of legends on the weekends.

I went on with my theory about the difference between Danny and I. Sam went on about how Danny compared to Vlad. Kirby went on about how she'd rather take on Freddy instead of Jason because she's a complete moron with no sense of true power. I mean, Kirby even LOOKS like one of his victims, and she'd skip the Hypnocil? Christ, who would turn down a relatively quick death via Voorhees?

Oh yeah, and Sam managed to write some crib notes of Tuck's journal for me. Every diagram in there is a method by which Danny could survive whatever Vlad could throw at him. Either Danny was one tough bastard, or Tucker has a tendency to exaggerate.

One night of lying there listening to them sleep and wondering which one I resembled more, and we were back on the road. The wind against my sunglasses, the sleeves of my jacket padding pressing on the handle rests, all the good things about owning a motorcycle. Including the fact Kirby is riding with Sam back home, she's paying us another visit before they started filming that 'documentary' being funded by the result of Vlad's imaginary sex life.

A day of swerving around slow-moving vans and trucks later and I was tearing dirt toward the ranch. That's the thing about these dirt roads, they're packed enough that a loaded truck and coast on by but a cycle leaves an indentation because of the weight placement. I can look at these lines out on the road and trace where I'd biked and when. And I can write words in cursive, I have no life.

I coasted next to the barn, propping the bike against the wall under an extended piece of roof they used to keep horses under. I find it ironic how this old barn has adjusted to the times. I've found a use for every little detail that was invaluable when this place was a real ranch. The hay loft? Kirby keeps her music stuff up there. The main section? My personal gym. This little horse shade thing, is now the parking space for the bike. Those Amish people who raised this thing sure had a good sense of convenience.

I had a few miles on Sam and Kirby, which I explained to my parents as I stripped off my jacket in the foyer, kicking the dirt off my boots.

"…so…you…took the recreational vehicle…"

My father was looking out the window at the bike while I told my mom about the reunion crowd.

"…yeah, Dad. That's a Termisake 780 with custom cylinder work and casings."

My folks, don't like the bike. It's not the noise, I had the muffler modified so it's pretty quiet. It's the whole…well, their son and niece are gaining a reputation. I've fallen in love with that bike, and Kirby just has to get out of this house every so often so she doesn't go nuts. I jogged up to my room and showered, by the time I dried off and dressed Sam's SUV was out front.

I walked down two floors to find my folks and sisters asking Sam the usual barrage of questions. They pried about the reunion while I got a soda from the kitchen and found an empty seat on the end chair. While I popped the lid and licked off the fizz my sisters were rolling on the couch over a crack Sam made about the former prom queen. My father chuckled, my mom covered her mouth so it looked like she had some manners left.

"Oh my…well, I'm glad your sense of humor hasn't rubbed off on our girls, Samantha."

Sam rolled her eyes slightly at my mother's being a wet electric blanket. But nonetheless she spotted me in the corner and winked.

"Don't let your guard down, Helen. I still have a few more years to corrupt these kids."

Well, the girls at least. Her sense of humor has become my own as of several years ago, but my folks haven't caught onto this yet. Eventually the two people who mixed DNA in order to create me hijacked the conversation and steered it into the documentary filming. As they began the banter about coverage on Sherri and Kerri, I drained the soda can and crushed it in my hand, then crushing it again into an even small blue metal ball between two fingers. Boxers make fists so often their grips are nominal.

I zoned out their chatter until I saw Kirby, who was sitting next to her disconnected grandmother on the couch, was turning a shade of soft red under her tan. As my focus returned the conversation reached my ears. My father had finished boasting his daughters over the grill, now my mother fried their niece.

"The producers thought Kirinia would make a good interest point."

I narrowed my eyes, focusing on Kirby's sharp features as they noticeably tightened but stayed in that eternal smile of hers. 'Kirby' is a self-coined nickname, she thinks of her real name as a curse.

"Mr. Master's assistant said she'd appeal to the musical and alternative crowd, possibly the Latin population."

Both my cousin and I winced as she said that. I've mentioned my mom denouncing her background, right? Shortening her real name to Helen, dying her hair and losing her accent? I can understand this, but when she refers to her own nationality as a census group…

"We feel she'd be a good comedy relief for the documentary."

A door slammed, and the space next to my grandmother was now empty. Kirby's jacket was gone from the coat rack, she must have grabbed it when she stormed out. My mother didn't notice. She kept on talking about her like she wasn't in the room, this time not out of ignorance.

"…and I think she has a small music career. But more importantly we want to include Alan. Mr. Masters himself said Alan represents that we're good people, ghosts or no ghosts."

I felt my eyebrow creep up as I sat in the corner armchair, watching.

"We're even doing some joke shots about that little hobby of his. He used to want to be a boxer or something, you know…"

Before she could finish saying 'boxer' I had the door closed behind me, having gone the same way Kirby had. As I stuffed my hands in my pockets and walked to the barn, I imagined she was still talking about me in there. Like I wasn't there. Was I ever, in their eyes?

2 Hours Later

Kirby and I have a routine for when thing get rough in the house. When they start talking about her like she's some rocker without a brain her head, she went out to the loft and played her guitars for who knows how long. Sometimes when I can't sleep I look out here and see that lantern's glow through the loft window straight through the night. If I turned off the TV I could listen to the chords and melodies she was compiling. Sometimes she went through songs as if she was doing a concert. Other times she just worked out lyrics and riffs all night, never two notes alike.

What about me? Do I have a harmonica I can puff away on till dawn? I just go out to my half of the barn and hit the bags. No, not blast them or any of that ghost stuff. I circle a bag, jabbing and weaving, reliving one of my old fights punch for punch. Do my folks complain about the sounds of leather on leather keeping them up at night? I think they must be taking sleeping pills, because lately they've been shutting out _ both _of us and not saying a thing.

So there we were, her in her loft strumming a bass, I in my training ring stringing out combinations. She didn't mind my punches because she had good rhythm. And I personally like boxing to music. Usually this is something I'd leave out of this journal because it's not ghost-related. Well, if it wasn't then, it is now.

This particular session of teenage angst had a spectator. After slipping away from my folks the same way we had, our grandmother insisted on watching us do our thing, seating on my preacher curl bench in the corner where she could see both the loft and my bag work clearly. Some scenery, eh? A golden Latin girl in a leather jacket singing her heart out to a guitar. A Chicago swarmer clad in a pair of knee-length cutoffs and a pair of bag gloves tearing into a leather heavy bag. And a young-looking woman of Gothic descent, watching with eyes covered in so much eye make up she probably wouldn't need eye gear while playing racquetball.

This went on in 'silence'. No one spoke, technically. Kirby sang to the boards of the loft, I grunted curses at my leather opponent, and Sam muttered comments under her breath the whole time.

Why am I telling you about this? Because at one point Samantha's cell phone rang with a tune from 'Rocky Horror', and she walked outside to take the call. She was gone for probably a half hour, judging by how many rounds my wall timer clicked off and how many ballads Kirb' went through.

When she walked back in she was accompanied by my sisters, who were both carrying stacks of what looked like photo albums. Not the digital ones Kirby has in her room, the ones that have actual photographs in plastic sleeves that work like the pages of a book. Sam directed my sisters over to the card table that bore my collection of gloves and wraps, pushing a few things aside to they could set down the stacks of albums that were nearly as big as they were, I'm surprised my sisters could carry things that heavy.

Of course we got curious, Kirby shrugged out of her guitar strap and dropped down the ladder, I pulled off my gloves and wiped most of my sweat off on my wraps before walking over. Sam was flipping through pages with my sisters standing close behind her, listening as she pointed out faces and places of the past. I got behind them, their lack of height making it easy for me to see over them. Kirby on the other hand, jumped off the ladder onto my back, peeking over my head for a better view. I would have thrown her off like a bronco, but I was feeling lazy at the time.

Sam slowed down her page turning when she got to a section on the Fenton family. The original Fentons Jack, Maddie, Jazz and what's his name, all captured with what I'm guessing was a disposable camera on a vacation.

"This one used to get me keeled over…"

She tapped a two-inch long nail on a wide shot of the family at the beach. The elder Fenton, Jack, was flexing for the camera. Dear, god…they let that guy take off his shirt in public! I cringed, my sisters laughed. Sherri was the first to catch her breath.

"Oh man…it's like Alan wearing a fat suit!"

The next instant I was holding my sister off the ground by her ponytail.

"…what was that?"

She laughed nervously.

"…eh…he's like you except fatter?"

"Oh."

I dropped her back onto her feet and looked closely at the portly man in the too-small swim trunks. Actually, if I'd let myself go and put on a hundred pounds of pure lard I can see the body type resemblance. The head doesn't match at all though. Sam commented.

"Yeah, Alan and his dad get their height from Mr. Fenton."

…I guess she never got used to calling him 'Jack' or 'Dad'. Maybe that's just too creepy.

"Here's Jazz, she went gray pretty early but she still looks good."

She tapped a high school graduation school portrait of a fair girl with red hair down to her waist. I glanced between the portrait and my sisters. The innocent expression must skip a generation or two, it's like Danny's sister split in two like a bacteria and dyed her/their hair brown. Wasn't she the non-weird one? She turned the page, there was the same girl getting her college diploma.

"She studied medical science, she's been in Europe for ages."

She snapped a few more pages, revealing pages upon pages of the three teenagers I'd seen in their prom photo. Danny, always wearing a baseball shirt and jeans, Sam in…well, Sam's fashion. And 'Tucker' I think with a cap and baggy clothes, complete with various electronic junk for accessories. She explained to my sisters who her and her late husband were before tapping Tucker's head.

"Tucker Foley. Currently in Japan promoting a toaster with Wi-Fi capabilities."

Guess which part of my body that's connected to my eye raised at that?

"…why…?"

She rolled her eyes, handing the book to my sisters so they could look themselves.

"You can make toast like they do in other countries."

Kirby, sitting on my left shoulder, head propped on one elbow, which in turn was on _my_ head.

"…what about toaster pastries?"

Sam looked up at her and thought for a second.

"I honestly don't want to know…"

She went through all the albums with us. We went back into the house when it got dark, Kirby and I helped her get settled before retreating to the third floor, crashing in her small living room. Her backpack from our had been emptied out onto the floor, adding to rainforest canopy of clothes that decorated her chambers. Kirby had shoved a pile of sweaters off her couch to give herself a place to sit, I was content with sitting on the arm rest.

"Hey, at least you didn't have to do the ghost thing today."

I smiled to myself, she had a point. Approximately two seconds later my father yelled to the entire house that a ghost was running loose two towns over. I sighed, turning to Kirby.

"It'll take ten minutes for them to suit up and practice their action poses. Go down to the cars and cut the transmissions like I showed you."

She nodded and got up, I snapped my fingers, disappearing into thin air and flying back through the wall and I just followed the sounds of screaming townspeople into the horizon. Just another day in the life of a…forty percent ghost thing.

Author's Note

...where are all the ghosts, right? I apologize for the lack of action in this chapter, the next will compensate. I felt I had to explain a few things for readers who anyalyze things. If Alan's breakthroughs about him and Danny weren't clear enough, they'll take shape as times goes on. The energy manipulation thing? I imagine eventually Danny could do that, and even if Butch Hartman himself knocks on my door saying it's impossible, then it'll be my fictional timeline only. Originally I was going to have Paulina make a cameo, but I realized her future self was too cliche for even one of my stories. You know, lately as I'm writing Kirby's dialogue I wonder if her Spanish slips are a bit much. Don't be surprised if I experiment with this in the future. Thank you for reading, reviews needed. Try not to be shy about commenting on characters, negative or positive.


	9. Chapter 9

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

I remember the good old days, when I had weeks between ghost encounters to lick my wounds, reflect on my existence and bounce pieces of candy off the wall into my mouth for hours on end. I had three days after that ghost attack. Three days. Two days to heal, one day to research technology being possessed by the deceased. The evening of the third day, Sam, who's staying with us for a while, comments that a serious ghost is loose again and may take over the country. She said this while filing her nails, waiting for me to get out of the bathroom.

A whole lot of fun and games later, and I managed to string out the events in my head close enough to actually form a story that could pass off as being written in English. And then, I was flipping through channels with a sore hand when I stumbled upon an hour-long special dealing with a recent unusual, yet high-coverage event. One that I may have had a hand in. Call me crazy, but in some context this little Music Television flick gives away exactly what happened to me. I'm serious. Don't believe me? Well, grab a snack and sit back. There aren't many commercial breaks.

Our feature presentation opens with a montage of a pop star screeching lyrics into a wireless mike, throwing her weight around on a neon stage in front of a band of plain musicians. Now, back in the day she'd look odd. Very pale, blue hair, odd make up. She was marketed in central pop, but she looked out of the old rock age. And she was singing the same, damn song in sixteen major cities on tour. A song about herself. See, this is why I only listen to the Rocky theme song, and Devil Goes Down to Georgia.

A voice over starts, and a possibly spaced out blonde in a designer outfit appears on screen, stating her shortened name and saying this is the inside scoop on the weirdest concert of the year. It took them two days to make this, give them some credit. The host explains who 'Ember' is. A younger relative of the once famous solo artist, now climbing up the charts and into the hearts of teens everywhere. Some stock footage of girls and guys alike dressing like the blue girl, raving at concerts, and shots of her CDs. She only has one song, how can she have more than one album?

Six screaming preteens later and the host, her overstuffed orange chair and the big screen behind her fade, leaving just her voice-over. The screen on my wall switched over to what appeared to be a handheld video camera tape. It was soon explained the show was completely comprised of security camera footage and behind the scenes shots, mixed in with a recording of the concert that started the whole deal. Guess who's headlining tonight?

As the idiot holding the camera wandered around the snack table the voice-over explained that this was just a routine concert for Ember, but due to reasons unknown this particular night might make history in the musical world. Wow, she has fake blonde hair, AND she can read cue cards, what a host! Who ever she was, she explained what was going on, making it easier for people who hadn't actually been there. Sound crews setting up, the warm up band making their premier, and more plugging Ember's face everywhere. So, what was the first weird thing that happened? Some other semi-big-name musician showed up at the back entrance, conning the guard into letting her inside because she's a celebrity. I'm serious.

They even had a sound-enabled security camera back there that they got the tape from so you can watch her make her grand entrance. The viewers got a great, black and white view of a doorway in a brick wall. With a guy holding a clipboard guarding it. He looks dead from the neck up. Actually, he probably was, Ember apparently has ghost security. Now, it would have been very nice if Sam had told me this instead of me showing up and seeing enough big dead guys with tazers to stop Zombie Lee Harvey Oswald himself. But, I had a back up plan.

A figure walks out from under the camera, back to the camera as it approached the stocky guard. Subtitles pop up as she speaks, but the security camera caught her words pretty well.

"Heya! Um…I'm not on the list, but I'm in…the business and thought I'd…eh…give my girl Ember a 411, you know? Teehee?"

…standing in front of the back door, rambling off incredibly forced dialogue, was Kirby. Actually…well, when I was watching this show myself I had a few noteworthy reactions. Imagine if you will, me hunched over on the floor in the fetal position.

_I didn't possess my cousin. I didn't possess my cousin. I didn't possess my cousin…_

Her/My voice kept going on like the bad actor I am before the guard shrugged, scratched his head and opened the door for her/us. The girl thanked him in a phony valley girl fashion, before tripping through the doorway in an impossibly off-balance swagger. You ever go from two hundred fifteenn pounds muscle mass to…geez, she must be less than half that?

The footage switched to back stage again, never revisiting the odd entrance of the Latin girl in street clothes. I myself plan on blocking that out. I never possessed my cousin. I never possessed my cousin…

The handheld camera footage had quite a bit of Kirby just walking around looking at the backstage events. The voice-over took twenty seconds to list her musical resume and background history. You thought I was joking about Kirby being well-known? She hasn't sold any record deals, but she could make some money if she ever felt the need for fame. Not that she ever would, she prefers leeching off me and my family for survival.

But enough about that, one detail caught my eye on the footage. Her mouth was always moving. She was a gum addict so this was normal. Except if you looked extremely closely it almost looked like she was talking to herself, which is also very common with her. Strangest of all, she walked keeping a lot of space on her right side, like she was making room for some one to walk next to her. Okay, say I _did_ 'overshadow' my cousin to get in undetected. I wouldn't stay like that for long before I'd go invisible and work from there.

So, an uninvited but welcome celebrity makes an appearance. Worth making a poorly made documentary about? Heck no, watch this. The camera cuts away to some groupie in an 'Ember' baseball cap. He stares into the camera blankly as he says in a monotone slur.

"Uh…Ember likes to work out...like, before she performs…so when we heard all that noise we knew she was just with her…trainer or whatever."

Now a fixed camera outside her dressing room. Coming from behind it were the sounds of something between a bar fight and a karate match, every so often some one would hit the door and it would bulge out on its hinges, accompanied by shouted curses. Eventually one brave groupie in rocker pants knocked on the door, asking if she was okay.

"…Ms. Ember? You okay in there?"

The scuffling sounds stopped for a moment, and the lock clicked from the inside. The door opened just a crack and a blue-hair girl stuck her head out, smiling at the camera with chipped teeth and the beginning of a black eye. Which blended with her ridiculous make-up rather well.

"Um…I'm fine! Just getting a workout in with my trainer."

The rocker-pants guy just stared, shaking his head to himself.

"…Ma'am, you look kinda' beat up…"

She smiled wider, as if she was thinking for excuses.

"…it's…fitness…street fighting! Really works the abs and calves!"

Right as the groupie started backing off some one inside the dressing room swung a chair out through the crack in the door, breaking it over Ember's head. She screamed out something the network censored with a long beep before ducking back into the room and slamming the door shut before throwing some one into it. We cut back to the groupie's blank face.

"I've never like _heard_ of fitness fighting…but, she's in like pretty good shape so I didn't say anything."

…we'll trust your opinion, crater face. More routine backstage stuff. And now off-the-record footage of Ember's band all set up on stage, waiting for her. The fans were chanting her name impatiently, she usually made some flashy entrance but this time she was just late. Her (dead) band was looking bored behind their instruments, and the crowd was starting to get pissed. As in guards pushing people off the front of the stage back into the pit, pissed.

Right when the band should have hid behind the speakers to protect themselves from flying chairs, there was a drawn out scream from the rafters above the stage, and a flailing blue thing fell onto the stage and thumped down with a dull flop, landing face down on the boards. The crowd went dead silent, before noticing the blue, comatose body had that trademark ponytail and cheering. Oddly enough the ponytail lit up and shifted slightly as they cheered, I think the host commented this was a special effect gimmick. Well, nowadays they're called visual effects, because fake stuff in movies isn't special anymore.

Slowly, she pushed herself onto her feet, revealing that her custom-made outfit was torn in places and spotted with grime. Her face was a mess of green splotches of blood (the fans thought it was a make-up job) and her eyes were starting to swell shut. She flashed a gap-toothed smile as she limped over to where her guitar sat, enticing more cheers and making her hair style extend down to her ankles. Some fans thought it was a cheer meter or something.

The camera shifted to a traditional music video style as she slung her guitar around her bruised shoulders, breaking into her literal one-hit wonder's opening riff. As she started chanting into the microphone headset she'd slipped on he crowd went wild, again. I'm not sure exactly what the song sounds like. You see, I've never been a music guy, and I was wearing these ear-plugs Sam sent me the whole time that night. Kirby did in fact chew a few sticks of gum while she was 'talking to herself'. She stuck the wads in her ears like earplugs. Yes, that is freakin' disgusting but she didn't turn into a raver so I guess it worked. But gum? Chewed gum?

But ten seconds into the song, yet another odd twist of Father Fate kicked in. Right as she started saying her name, the sound cut off. All the music coming from the speakers just cut off and was replaced by an electronic whine that indicated the microphone system had been cut.

She sang a few more words into the dead mike, her tiny voice echoing slightly in the stands before she blinked, looked down at the cables crossing the stage and noticed one had been cut right through the middle, that hadn't been like that before she came out on stage. Remember, people gifted with invisibility. Always come prepared with a pocket knife. Or a switchblade if you can find one, they just kick ass.

Well, she didn't appreciate the cut cable, even if I had done it like a Boy Scout. She dropped her electric guitar, letting it break in half when it hit the stage and she stormed off like a six year old to the side of the stage, pointing and screaming at who the fans guessed was a tech guy who screwed up.

"…you're going down, you steroid-jacked punk!"

And she lunged off the side of the stage into the area covered by a curtain. A second later she was thrown through the air, screaming and flailing before she crashed into the back-stage area on the _other side of the stage_. Like a catapult. When I first saw this on TV, I was hunched forward on my bed as Kirby applied a balm to the ecto-bite-marks, gashes and bruises that had stayed on my back despite the whole ghost healing thing. I heard her ask.

"…how'd you do that?"

I shrug, wincing at the pain in my shoulders from being slammed into that door.

"I brought along the Fenton Anti-Creep stick, I found it in the back of Sam's car yesterday. Thought it'd come in handy."

"…the green baseball-bat with the sticker?"

"Yeah. I played a bit in high school, when she flew at me it was just like another speedball."

But enough about my numerous injuries, baseball bats and my pitching average. Back to what's playing on my flat-screen.

…the crowd loves it. They think it's all a big stunt show as they hear their idol crash through a row of speakers and a snack table behind the curtain. They didn't chant her name this time, they were too busy screaming how cool that was.

Soon a guy in black pants, a black leather jacket and gray shirt, sporting a black 'Ember' baseball cap he stole from a gift shop walked out on stage, strolling by in front of the band and the audience to the other side of the stage where she landed. A few people yelled, asking what the heck. He stopped a few feet from the other curtain, rubbing his neck as he yelled.

"I'm…her…personal trainer?"

He stares blankly as a few people cheer. He's connected to Ember, he's famous as long as he stays in plain sight. Which wasn't long, as he walked behind the curtain and started the crowd cheering as she apparently got a mid-show workout with her trainer, detailed by loud curses erupting from behind the curtain, broken furniture landing on the stage after being thrown, and other fun sounds like bones popping out of sockets.

This went on for ten minutes. The crowd kept cheering, in such a mind-bend that they love it. Eventually they remembered whose concert this was and started screaming her name again. Two seconds later, they cheered as her trainer in the leather jacket and hat flew back across the stage as if shot out of a cannon, grunting in pain, slamming into a pillar and dropping onto the stage lifelessly. I winced as I saw it happen third-person, the pain in my spine getting worse at the memory of how I got it.

Their savior limped with both legs out to the stage, kicking the guy to make sure he was down before waving for the crowd to worship her, their cheer making her ponytail touch the ground as she picked up her guitar, which mysteriously wasn't in two pieces anymore, and yelled to her tech guys to get the wire replaced, they have a city to win over.

A few minutes later some groupie hooked up a new cable and her band started tuning up, the fans rocking back and forth in anticipation. Right as she got her strings tuned and swallowed the rest of her misplaced teeth, yet another surprise guest! A tall girl dressed in black and green walked out from the side curtain opposite the guy's motionless form, walking straight up to Ember's mike and addressing the crowd.

"…you guys mind another warm-up act?"

Now, the crowd booed. For three seconds until some one yelled.

"…that's Kirby!"

…and here come the cheers…how the heck they knew who she was, I'm not sure. I think only like ten people in the whole stadium had seen her perform, the rest just figured she must be good so she can kill time for them while they work out the wiring. Now, if you look to the side of the screen you can see the 'personal trainer' crawling off to the side, propped up on one elbow and motioning for the surprise guest singer to get he hell out of there. She didn't.

She introduced herself as she literally shoved a dumbfounded Ember away from the mike, and moving the mike stand away from the band to the side of the stage where the guy in the jacket just crawled behind the curtain. The camera zooms in on her face as she yells to talks to some one behind the curtain, motioning with her hands that she needs a guitar. Some one must have heard her, because he or she tossed a bright green acoustic with an amp jack into her arms. She nodded in thanks, examining the guitar before setting it down and motioning that she needs a different kind.

This time the mysterious tech guy just throws it onto the stage in front of her with a dull clunk, this one is the same shade of green but with more strings. She smiles, picking it up and tuning it into the microphone before snapping her fingers and saying one more thing behind the curtain. She yelps into the mike and ducks as a green guitar pick is thrown in the vicinity of her big mouth. She picks it up, smiles in apology at the guy off stage before adjusting the microphone for the last time and starting a riff. Off in the center of the stage, Ember and her lifeless band are staring blankly, not sure whether to kick her off the stage or call security.

While getting my cuts and bruises treated on the other side of the screen, I grumble at the tech guy incident. Kirby laughs nervously behind me.

"…eh…I just prefer extra strings?"

I grumble.

"Fine. _You_ try creating and maintaining a freakin' guitar out of ecto-energy while trying to pop your dislocated shoulder back in…"

…extra strings my ass…

But back to the show. The cameras pan in, cutting off the rest of the stage as Kirby starts out with one of her trademark Spanish ballads. Half the audience probably doesn't speak Spanish, but nonetheless their jaws dropped in the darkened stadium. As her voice weaves a leash around her listeners, you can just make out a shadow creeping behind where she was standing toward the center of the stage. Man, I knew she was good but _that good?_

Around the middle chorus you can see the headliner getting ticked. Ember, still bruised from the 'workouts', clenched her fists behind her guitar before she waves at he audience with both hands, trying to catch their eye but every single eyeball is turned towards the girl with the green guitar under the spotlight a smart tech manager had shined on her after cutting the main lights. The shadow in the back is shifting towards the drummer.

While Kirby finished to a huge applause, Ember is losing it, screaming at the fans. The host, who after all this is still giving her opinion of what's going on, points out that Ember's hair extension seems to have fallen off. Very true, her ponytail is down to the root, so much for owning the audience.

The fans are now yelling for another song, Ember long forgotten despite her screams and motions. She practically jumps up and down, yelling for the crowd to say her name as the shadow walks closer behind her, cracking its neck. She screams in annoyance, spinning around to tell her band something, seeing the figure standing behind her. This is going on in the background and in my own memory of course, the show is nothing but Kirby's singing at the point. The pop star backs away from the approaching figure, cursing (…well, bleeping, this is TV) him and saying she'll be back before grabbing her guitar and slashing it through the air, creating a glowing blue vortex that actually catches the crowd's attention.

She curses (bleeps) the shadow once more before leaping through her portal, her band disappearing as it closed. Even Kirby stopped playing to watch her exit. Silence. And slowly, applause started. Nice special effects. Sure, she didn't even get a song out and they wasted money and time even getting tickets for tonight but that was cool. Man, what these fans smoking in the line for concessions? Kirby started backing off the stage, but before she could the crowd cheered for another song. Needless to say she took the floor. People came by the hundreds to see Ember and this girl came out of nowhere, completely drawing them in.

The last fifteen minutes of the program was just Kirby's impromptu concert. The highlight of which was when she took a break to tune the guitar and give her regards to a friend of hers who this song was dedicated towards. Don I need to say which song? Do I? Fine, it's that 'Like a Phantom' crap she keeps working on. I'm surprised they didn't mention those mysterious face-shaped dents in the back wall that appeared during the line '_Walking towards the light, with his eyes turned away'_. I hated it when she sang that alone in the barn, let alone like _this._

The cameras had perfect focus by the end of that song, and zoomed back as for the last time some one walked out on stage. It was the man now known to the crowd as Ember's personal trainer, pulling his hat brim down to hide his face from the lights. He got a few cheers and laughs as he calmly walked over to Kirby, plucking her guitar away from her and setting it down before grabbing the caught off-guard singer. He slung her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, carrying her off the stage as she waved to the fans over his back. Hey, if I didn't drag her off she'd never leave. The credits roll and the host says goodbye, leaving me to the reality I'd nearly forgotten about for a moment.

As before, I was crouched forward on my bed as Kirby put away the first aid kit she'd been using on my back. For some reason most of the injuries hadn't healed when I shifted forms. I didn't need to get to a hospital full of nosy doctors but for the last two days I've had Kirby treat my back, I'm still hurting from hitting that pillar. As Kirby looks in the mirror on my wall, comparing her own face to that girl with the green guitar, she commented.

"…so, you admit that I saved your ass, _Primo_?"

I grumbled, pulling a shirt on painfully.

"I was doing fine out there."

She rolled her eyes, taking a seat on the edge of my desk.

"I just saw your back, _Alano_. You shouldn't have taken her on like that. The crowd had her at full power."

I finished pulling on my shirt over the balm-covered cuts and bruises as she watched without a care.

"I always catch a few hits before a knockout."

She sighed, covering her eyes with one tanned hand.

"Well…at least I didn't choke out there."

I rolled my eyes as I started flipping through channels, reclined on my bed.

"You kidding? I yelled it was time to get outta' there ten times. I had to drag you off the stage."

She smiled to herself, she occasionally let herself a little pride.

"_Verdad, Verdad_…but hey, maybe I can record a couple songs to pay for my rent here?"

I glanced over, realizing she was serious. It was impossible for me to read that eternal smile of hers a few months back, but I'm able to read her pretty well nowadays.

"…my folks charge you rent now?"

She shook her head, folding her legs up into a lotus position on my desk.

"_Nada_, I just want something saved up in case I want a car or something."

I sighed, looking back at the TV to find a rerun of some sitcom about aliens. Television has gone down in quality ever since that nerdy serial killer got all the sitcom writers back in 2010. My mind wandered to the crowd at that concert. All they did was cheer and whoop. They saw some innocent guy getting beat down, and their idol getting thrown all over the stage and all they did was think its fake and enjoy it. Most likely now that Ember's gone they'll go back to their normal lives, but still.

"Kirb'? You ever think humanity has gotten so jaded to violence that I could have died on that stage and no one would notice?"

She popped her head up, having zoned out while touching her ears with both hands for some reason.

"…huh? Sorry, still trying to get that gum out of my ears."

I let my eyebrow creep up my forehead, flipping through channels until I found a boxing match and started lecturing Kirby on the finer points of the jab. A night well spent.

The Next Day

I can't say I was woken up by Sam prodding my back at six in the morning. It was one of my 'awake nights' so I was wide awake when she opened the door. I winced when she tapped my back, it still hurt whenever my back brushed anything.

"…what's up?"

I stiffly rolled over, sitting up as best as I could. Yep, still sore from being beaten to the point of near death, how about you?

Sam was standing over my bed, putting an earring in her left ear. She already had five on, why not one more I guess.

"You remember Jazz?"

I shrug, holding back another wince.

"Yeah, from the photo album."

She nodded.

"Good. Meet me by the car."

With that she walked out and down the stairs. I stared after her for a moment before getting dressed with slightly less pain than the previous night. I crept down the steps to the front door, walking out to Sam's SUV, she started the car as I slipped into the passenger seat. She didn't say a word as we drove all of two miles to the train station. She motioned to get out, and I followed her out to the platform I knew like the back of my hand. She frowned at one of her chipped nails as a train bell rang in the distance. I looked around at the empty station.

"Soo…we going somewhere?"

She shook her head, swinging her hair over one shoulder.

"Jazz just flew in from Britain. She's going on a college tour to New York, I told her to stop by."

Huh. Well, it's always fun meeting a new relative I counted my teeth as the commuter train rush through, squealing to a stop as the doors slid open on three cars. Only one passenger got out, a gray haired but surprisingly young looking woman a bit taller than my sisters clad in a nice blazer and carrying a single bag at her side. Sam forgot I was standing there as the two women ran up to each other, starting one of those hug sessions women get into when they see some one they haven't seen in the last 24 hours.

I stepped up on my toes to get a closer look at the woman currently getting the life squeezed out of her by my grandmother. When they turned slightly I got a good look at her face as it was propped on Sam's shoulder. She was smiling with her eyes closed, showing a distinct lack of wrinkles or blemishes for her age. I don't get it. How do these older women look like that? Sam only eats grass, so I can imagine her body doesn't have enough food to age. But this great-aunt of mine had to be sixty but looked…well, forty.

She opened her eyes as they broke apart like two cheerleaders in a huddle. I felt my brows kick up as I saw her eye color, identical to mine. Same shade of hazy blue. She started chattering with Sam at an astonishing rate, catching up on the last few years while I stood there trying not to scratch this itch on the back of my leg.

She had a clear, intelligent voice that got its point across, even if she was using it to joke about how British people have teeth like Dobermans. As they moved to the side slightly as she picked up the bag she'd dropped, I got a look at her hair. Waist length, full of bounce and shine but a striking shade of silver. Wow, I wasn't aware gray hair could ever look that good.

They continued chattering in a language unknown to men (…as in just the males) as they walked to Sam's car, slipping into the two front seats while I ducked into the back. Neither had acknowledged my existence yet. I pondered my existence as a whole during the drive back home, they kept chattering about places and people I have never seen nor heard of. I'm guessing Jazz was a good sister-in-law judging by the way Sam wasn't acting like her middle name was 'Death'.

I shuffled behind them as they continued their buzzing conversation in the empty living room of the farmhouse. Well, the Fentonhouse as my folks call it. Speaking of which, I think Jazz married and used her husband's name to avoid being connected to this family. Her records popped up with mixed identities when I did a background check on her. She had a trace of a Brit's accent, she must have been there a while. I noticed the conversation had shifted towards Sam's family opposed to Jazz's lectures. Ten minutes later, and Sam explained that she had a grandson named Alan. She listed off my achievements and quirks as I sat in front of them in plain sight.

Eventually my great-aunt's eye wandered over and squared off in my direction. She raised a hand for Sam to pause their buzzing as she saw me trying not to fall asleep in my chair.

"…Wow…the bloke's the spitting image of Danny and you…"

I forced my eyebrow to stay down. Bloke? Spitting? The? This woman's been in London too long. She got up and walked closer to me, looking at me like a statue with her head tilted. I looked back at her like a comedian forbidden from saying anything.

"…his face is just Danny…he has your eyes, even with Danny's color."

My eyebrow broke out of the handcuffs and snaked its way up. Sam's eyes? What? Did she mean how we both had that way of looking at people in a certain way or did Sam just have purple contacts over blue eyes? My silver-haired aunt kept looking me over, motioning for me to stand up. I shrugged, slumping onto my feet and standing up in front of her slight frame.

She whistled about my height, looking at Sam with a slight smile before sitting back down, I did the same rather painfully. Sam nodded toward me and stated.

"…this may sound a bit much, but Alan here hurt his back fixing his bike. Mind taking a look?"

I stared at my grandmother as if she were a cross dressing, socially confused Einstein. Jazz said it was no problem, she walked over to where I was sitting and told me to take my shirt off. I gave Sam a glance as I pulled up the back of my shirt, showing the remains of Ember's damage. I didn't hear her gasp or anything, it couldn't look that bad after a few days of healing. I felt her hand grip my shoulder blade gingerly, feeling the bruised skin's surface.

"…you got these…fixing a bike?"

I nodded, not shrugging because she was holding the skin on my shoulder. She felt around a bit more, obviously a member of a medical field judging by how she knew where to look. She finally let go but didn't say what her findings were.

"Sam, could you get something cold? I'm just going to relieve the pressure between his shoulder blades, the inner swelling is probably causing him a lot of pain."

…so _that's _what that was…dang, she was good. Sam said it was no problem and went into the kitchen. I felt her touch my back again, feeling a cut going from my waist to my shoulder.

"…so, was this from hitting that beam?"

I blinked, my eyes going wide as I slowly, stiffly turned to face her. She looked at me kindly, as if I was a patient.

"…um…what?'

She nodded toward the gash on my back.

"At the concert, was it the beam you landed against?"

I backed away from her, shrinking into my chair slightly. I didn't take my eyes off of her, expecting something to happen. It never did, she kept looking at me as if I were just another kid with an injury.

"…how…do…"

I tend to talk slowly when I'm freaked out or scared. She waved a hand and said in an off-hand way.

"I was a die-hard Ember fan back in the day. Figured out later she was a ghost, caught her comeback concert on the plane over here."

…planes have live TV? Wow. Wait…

"…okaaay…"

I looked at the kitchen entrance, Sam was out of sight and earshot. She noticed this and said.

"…she doesn't know. Relax, I only got into this because Danny's my little brother."

I flashed Jazz a clueless look. She smiled slightly, she had a smile like my sisters.

"…Danny never figured out I knew. I found out your situation because your back shows signs of healed internal damage. Danny was in a car accident when he was seventeen. He healed in the same way you did."

I stared, taking it all in as she revealed this. Okay, so she knew about Danny and hadn't told anyone. And she figured out I was in the same situation because of how fast my back had healed from an obviously major trauma. She kept smiling, this was nothing to her. She heard Sam coming and just commented while she could.

"Good thinking, getting that one girl to sing by the way."

I was about to ask what she meant when Sam walked in with an ice pack. Jazz went back to feeling my back as she took the pack and thanked Sam. She then pressed it against my left shoulder blade, massaging the bruised tissue. I felt the constant pain in my back settle slightly, she must have pinpointed the worst of it.

I sighed, closing my eyes as she finished and asked me to move my arm. I did so and amazingly felt no shooting pains or stiffness. I turned to see her nod at her work, commenting to Sam that I'm a fast healer like Danny before telling me I can put my shirt back on. I did so as they went back to chattering about some one named 'Paulina' and how fat she got after high school. Sam talked like she hated the person, Jazz seemed a tad less critical.

I looked out the window, seeing the sun was still low. Has to be a bit before seven. No wonder Sam had me come with, I'd be up this early anyway. When I heard people moving around upstairs I snuck out to the barn, I'm still recovering from Sam's welcome party, last thing I need is another documentary preview.

2 Hours Later

"…she knew?"

I nodded, hunching my shoulder a bit.

"Not sure how, but she seems harmless enough."

I was hanging from a horizontal metal bar planted between two exposed beams in the barn. I was hanging down like a kid on the monkey bars. Above me, in the exposed rafters twenty feet above the ground that you can reach from the loft, was Kirby. She was standing casually on a beam a few inches wide, with nothing under her but a clear drop onto the floorboards. She was pacing back and forth on the tiny plank like it was a balance beam. She had a few years in gymnastics, she's safe as a cat up there.

Meanwhile, I started swinging my legs back and forth as I hung from the bar. Eventually I kicked up my momentum, swinging up and stopping when my legs and torso were sticking straight vertical above the bar like a gymnast before letting myself unfold into a position where I was sitting on the bar rather comfortably. It felt great. I was doing these little bar tricks to stretch out my back after my down time. Kirby, well, she's just bored.

I creaked my neck up and watched her pace the tiny beam. At one point she walked to the end, turned around and did a perfect cartwheel to the other side. I shook my head, but nonetheless it was impressive. She may not be the cleanest cut girl around, but she deserved those gymnastics ribbons she has on her wall. She ended her little flip in a finishing stance before crouching down into a sitting position, dangling her legs off the beam like I was.

"She seemed cool. How'd she fix your back anyway?"

I swung my legs a bit, relishing the flexibility I had in my spine again.

"No clue. But onto more important matters, you get that gum out of your ears yet?"

She hesitated, swinging her legs over a fall that would break a dozen bones as if it were a crack in the sidewalk.

"…some of it…"

I rolled my eyes, rubbing the back of my neck to stretch it out.

"Could be worse, could have been that brand that has spider eggs in it."

Author's Notes

Why isn't Jazz the critical feminist she usually is? Well, it's been a few decades. I've made her out to be the kind of person that makes a fine doctor. She's learned to be caring, a good listener, and the whole saving lives thing. Once again, I feel this is how her character would develop, not saying anything official. You may catch the thing about Danny's family finding out. By family I mean his parents, Jazz was in college when it happened and they decided not to tell her due to her dislike of the ghost business. How'd Ember get out of Walker's? Well, this is what happens when you give prisoners sporks at lunch time. Lots of riots, lots of breakouts. I've seen it happen. And as you can see, Alan isn't exactly invincible. Did he plan on Kirby coming out? No, he just won't admit she saved his rear.


	10. Chapter 10

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any copyrighted franchises or characters, including other series mentioned in this story. I own all original concepts and characters.

Pre-Note: I usually don't do this, but you guys have to see these. Lessien carried out her plan and did two amazing drawings based on this fic. Web addresses don't work in reviews or stories, so track down her art page and check them out.-

Being a half-ghost or whatever has its perks. But is being able to defy gravity and create matter via pure will worth the sacrifice of my social/dating/sex life? In the course of three days, my newfound purpose in half-life ruined every attempt at my getting some rest and relaxation. I can move around like I used to now that my back isn't busted, and those gashes are healing without any sign of scarring. But I still felt I deserved a couple days off.

Surprisingly enough Jazz stayed a few days to catch up on things with Sam and spend some time with the family. Remember how she acted with Sam at the train station? Just imagine three days of that, I won't waste time trying to translate fem-chat. Kirby tried to translate it for me in both Spanish and English, but it came out as gibberish.

A few hours after Jazz showed up Sherri ran out to the barn in her bathing suit yelling that we were all invited to spend the day on some one's corporate yacht. Well, all the family members appearing in the documentary, one of the producers only does deals on her boat and doesn't mind meeting the cast. Sam and Jazz stayed behind, Sam wants the sun to kill itself for being so happy and positive. And Jazz gets seasick.

Two minutes of pulling on swimsuits while running down steps later and we were all loaded into the van, Kirby and I took the folding seats in the very back to avoid being dragged into the 'conversations' my family was famous for. We would have taken the bike, but Kirby's wearing a string two piece, and riding a cycle in swim trunks is extremely painful. Trust me. I tried once, my kids are going to be born looking like they came out of a hockey fight in a phone booth.

It was a four hour drive, my sister kind of forgot to mention that. An hour of 'Fenton-songs' later and I wished I would have just sacrificed my future children and just took the bike. Kirby just sat there smiling, I envy her. Her and her nonchalance, and her bubble gum-covered eardrums. When the landscape shifted from flat farm ground to rivers and eventually the pier of a huge lake, I occupied my time watching girls on bikes ride by, some waved at me. I sometimes waved back.

That's the thing about boxing. No women. Well, actually you can date all you want and go to clubs and except very date has to end with a kiss on the cheek on her doorstep, and two hours of banging your head in a wall for ever getting into this physical training thing. Is this why I'm still single? No, I'm just a complete push-over with females. Despite them consisting of most of my friends. I'm serious, name one male friend I've told you about.

Eventually we pulled into a marina and parked next to a sleek boat about a couple hundred feet long and a few stories tall. Wait, _this_ is a corporate yacht? I expected just kicking back in a lounge chair on a nifty pontoon boat, not listing off drinks to some French guy and clinking glasses with people who got away with killing their wives because they're famous. Wait, was that a hot tub?

3 Hours Later

At the very front of the stern sat a row of padded lounge chairs. I was stretched out the end of the row, my eyes closed behind my sunglasses while I was slowly being cooked alive by UV rays. Next to me, lay Kirby in silver sunglasses and a tiny black two piece that she was only wearing to avoid major tan lines. I myself had a pair of baggy, dark red trunks. Somehow, what we were wearing stemmed into a lazy conversation as the yacht hummed across the lake in an endless circle.

"You're the right type, you could manage it."

I rolled my eyes behind my eyelids.

"Kirb', I made a promise to myself the day I tore a shirt by flexing my biceps. I shall never don a speedo."

She sighed, not dropping the subject.

"You have those muscles, why not show them off?"

"You're a nice looking celebrity, why not stage a wardrobe malfunction?"

Silence for a few seconds.

"…well fought, Alan."

I smirked up at the cloudless sky. Right as I was about to joke about some toll booth guys selling their experiences to the tabloids I heard a throat clear itself next to my chair. I cracked open one eye, looking through my Oakley's at a young kid in an official polo shirt.

"Would you like an ash tray, sir?"

I shook my head.

"Nuh thanks Bud', never smoked in my life."

He gave me an odd look before walking off to the starboard side away from us. I twisted my head over to ask my cousin what that was about when I saw why he asked. There was a light blue mist wafting out through my mouth whenever I talked, thankfully he assumed I was smoking. I groaned, jerking upright in my seat and looking around, scanning the lakefront until I saw a neon green pirate ship tied to a dock outside a seafood restaurant. I sighed, could my life have any more clichés?

"Hey, Comedy Relief-Bearing Sidekick, tell my folks I went off with some college girls in a speedboat, be home by dark."

My cousin held back a laugh, still laying there and enhancing her natural tan.

"Keep dreaming, Reluctant Protoganist."

I looked around for any pool boys or arm candy bimbos walking around before snapping two fingers, adjusting the collar of my jacket as it appeared on my frame and flying off towards the chaos. Hey, maybe it's for the best, with that whole skin cancer thing. Even though I'm a quarter-Cuban and can't burn if I were chucked into the sun itself covered in barbecue sauce.

Took me about an hour to take out the crew and the one-legged, one-handed and one-eyed captain. And judging by his whole 'Find the Treasure' mentality he probably only has a single something else too. Eventually they set sail to get away from me, and boat sank straight down into the lake. Judging by my lack of visible breath they went back to wherever the Ghost Zone is.

By the time I got back to the yacht my folks had finished talking to the producer. Now they were sitting on both sides of Kirby's lounge chair. I stayed invisible as I approached them, eavesdropping on the conversation topic. My dad stood up, apparently ending the conversation/lecture. Kirby was laying in the same position I'd left her in, she must have just sat there and heard them out.

"The papers are in the library back home after you think it over."

They walked off, leaving her as they found her. When they were gone, I phased back into my solid, human self. I was wearing my trunks and shades again, so I laid back down on my chair and tried to find a comfortable position.

"What was that about?"

She sounded tense, she barely opened her mouth to speak. I could hear her teeth clenching, she was seriously ticked but not showing it.

"…your parents want me to change my name to Fenton…"

I jerked into a sitting position, staring at the stoic maiden that somehow looked aloof. I reached up and lowered my shades to my nose, wondering how she didn't chew them out.

"Because of the movie?"

She tilted her head down slightly, then back up. A nod of sorts. I noticed her nails were twitching, like she was trying not to make a fist.

"Yeah. They said 'Alvirez' sounds too Mexican."

I winced, flipping my shades back up. I've mentioned how my folks are a bit blunt racially. I've mentioned how they ignore the fact I was raised bilingual and bi-cultural by my mom's family. They made sure the twins never picked up any Latin traits, but they were too late with me. And now they wanted Kirby to lose her last name. Too Mexican? We're Cuban!

Kirby was pretty upset for the rest of the day. I feel guilty, and _am _ guilty, because if I'd stayed in my lounge chair and let the ghost thing work itself out, my folk wouldn't have proposed this to her. They never do anything like this when I'm in the room, I've had a few arguments with them about their preferences and I usually win.

So, because of my being the new 'Halfa', when we got home Kirby went up to the barn loft and one of her older guitars. And stayed there.

I climbed up there a couple times, every few hours, to give her something to eat but she never looked at me. She just kept looking at the strings and her fingers, never stopping her riffs when I was around like I wasn't there. But every time I checked on her the food from before was gone. And later while I was reading a true-crime book to kill time around midnight, she came up the stairs next to my door looking considerably calmer but not smiling. She looked, well, terrible.

The only times I've seen her like this are when she found me after that dragon incident, when she tore into me about my boxing career, and when came back from visiting her mom for the day and told me about her grandmother throwing a plate at her. So when she dragged herself in and slumped into my desk chair, I snapped my book shut and gave her my full attention.

"…Alan?"

She closed her eyes heavily. I saw she was tired. Very, very tired. I leaned off the edge of my bed when I saw something on her hands. Her fingertips were dark red, she'd been playing so long the skin on her hands was raw. She wasn't bleeding too much so I didn't get the first aid kit I kept under my bed for when I come home a bit beat up.

"Yeah?"

She must be trying to stay awake.

"Go upstairs and get that paper."

I slowly got up, seeing she was too tired to get up. I ran upstairs and back, seeing she was still slumped back in my chair, shaking her head every so often to stay awake. She shifted her raw fingers slightly.

"I can't write. Could you get a pen and do this for me?"

I stared at her in disbelief, but found only the back of her eyelids looking back at me. I grabbed a pen from my end table and pressed the tip to the 'New Last Name' box, my parents had filled out the rest of the form, including her signature. I knew it was going to hurt her more than me. What made her change her mind out there?

"…so, Fenton it is?"

She weakly shook her head. This is the first time I've seen her not brimming with energy.

"…_Cisne De Oro_…"

I did a double take at her suggested new name. But ten seconds of shock later I wrote it out in block letters, folding the paper and putting it into the attached envelope. I crossed my arms, just looking at her.

"…your old nickname…?"

She opened her eyes, my spine shivering as her green eyes made up for lost time by burning into me. It took me a second to realize she was smiling again.

"…hey, they didn't like Alvirez, they'll hate this…"

I smiled back. _Cisne De Oro _is the name Kirby made for herself when she was doing the ballet tours with her mom. She never acknowledged it but she was aware of the crowd's nickname for her. It was like me being 'The Phantom'. I knew who they were talking about but I'm not getting it tattooed anywhere. At least I think Kirby doesn't have it on her person, I may have missed it by closing my eyes that one time when she walked by. And she doesn't exactly have an index of her tattoos for curious yet shy people.

I walked downstairs and put the envelope in the outgoing mail slot, and when I came back up Kirby was asleep in my chair. I just sighed, slinging her over my shoulder just like I had when she was on stage, and carrying her into her room to dump her on the couch. I covered her with a bed sheet draped over her Oriental screen before going back to my room and reading Tucker's Binder until sunrise. I'm starting to understand it, somewhat.

The Next Morning

…Kirby walked by my doorway to get herself breakfast, singing a Spanish folk tune and balancing a thong sandal on top of her head as she bounced down the steps. Good as new. I don't get it either.

If I could figure out what her power source was I could stick a Fenton sticker on it and make millions. I didn't see her like she was that night for a long while. She may get down at times but deep down she's still that girl who eats rice balls like a show dog.

I went down after her, and after a light breakfast I took her with me to the gym for the first time. Maybe it was to cheer her up after what she'd been through, maybe it was because she'd been begging me to show her how to work a speed bag.

Well, that didn't work out either.

A Few Hours Later

"…I'm telling you, some one was hitting him!"

The speaker, a black haired woman carrying a cloth shopping bag whose make-up had been smeared by tears. She had run out of an alley up to a police officer. She'd managed to get out through sobs that some one had attacked her. When he checked it out he found some skinhead thug dressed in a dirty denim jacket sprawled out on the concrete, out cold. Next to him was a dropped handgun. The brick walls around his limp form glittered with impacted bullets that he'd fired into them.

The cop just scratched his neck, got the guy in cuffs, called back up and was now asking he victim what happened. She said the guy went to rip her shirt at gunpoint when his head shot back like some one hit him. She went on into a ridiculous story about an unseen person taunting the thug, enticing him into firing wildly trying to hit the source-less voice.

When he was out of ammo the guy just flew back into a wall like some one threw him, and she ran for help. The cops listened to this as they scanned the guy's picture into their car computer to get a profile, he was out cold in the back seat. As she finished her impossible story the rookie in the car yelled out that they had an identity match.

The guy was wanted on three accounts of sexual assault and questioning in a murder-robbery case. The woman fainted. One of the officers caught her while the others just look at each other, then at the alley where it happened. I was sitting on the top of their cruiser, having heard the whole thing. Just an invisible fly on the wall.

They called for an ambulance for the shock-prone woman before wrapping things up and driving off, I stayed invisible while I watched the cars off before flying three blocks over and through the roof of my gym, going solid in an empty bathroom stall to avoid questions.

I walked out into the hall and through the main area to the sparring ring. I looked up through the elevated ropes to see two rookies in sparring gear shaking gloves and parting ways. The guys standing around who'd been watching the practice match noticed me walking up and nodded toward the taller fighter in the gray top and trunks, she was wearing a black protective head gear with a braided black ponytail running down to her back.

"She's got a jab like yours, Fent'. How long you been teachin' her?"

I shrugged, looking at the older trainer with salt and pepper hair over a dark, smooth face.

"Few weeks."

'Mitch' as we called him did a double take between me and the gray-clad female fighter who was maneuvering her legs through the ropes as she went to get a drink.

"…what's her name again?"

I crossed my arms, smirking slightly.

"Kirby Cisne De Oro."

He broke out in a laugh reeking of Eddie Murphy.

"…man, she _is_ Cuban."

I laughed with him as the 'Golden Swan' (as it means in Spanish) walked up to us pulling off her headgear and shaking the sweat off her bangs like a sheepdog.

"Where were you? I needed help with my footwork."

I blushed slightly, shrugging in surrender as she flashed a toothy smirk at me through her sweat and fatigue.

"Had to take a call."

I bid Mitch farewell, nodding for Kirby to follow me as I helped pull off her gloves, carrying them for her along with the blue headgear we'd borrowed from the female pro who trains here. This is a good gym. Kirby would get along fine here by herself, no hassles from trainers or single males. It only made things easier that she was under the wing of the local legend. She sat down on a bench along the wall as she pulled off her wraps, I'm still teaching her how to wrap her own hands.

"…so, who called you?"

I looked out at the gym full of fighters and wannabe-fighters, casually mentioning.

"Eh…some guy with a gun. Saw him walk by the window, got a bad vibe."

She shot me a sharp green glance as she dumped her wraps inside her headgear, crossing her arms.

"…he better have turned out to be a _dead_ guy with a gun…"

…Kirby never liked how I sometimes help out the alive and in trouble…hey, if I can't be a detective I might as well use what I have to catch a few sickos. It's not like I'm a superhero, they never even know I'm there. I rubbed the back of my neck, right as the sound of some one hitting the canvas rang out through the immediate area.

"He was wanted for rape, Kirb'…"

Her sharp glare softened at that word, which I make it a goal never to use. She weakly muttered.

"…oh…"

She glanced down at her sweat-dampened hands, not making eye contact.

"Well…next time, hit the bastard twice for me."

I smirked a bit before nodding towards the lockers, she followed me like a duck as I spotted my prey and walked over with the headgear in hand.

Leaning against the worn-velvet ropes of the other sparring ring was a guy about my age, size and body type but of African descent. This was Aron, we've been gym friends since he asked me where the bag gloves were six years ago. I crept up behind him, tapping his shoulder with my elbow. He grinned as he saw me, turning away from the two fighters sparring in the ring.

"Sup', Fent?"

I shrugged, setting down the headgear on the edge of the ring.

"Here's the set back, it was nice of Wasp to lend her spare gear to a rookie."

The rookie in question was perched on her tip-toes behind me to watch a lean, female fighter trading padded blows with one of the male veterans. When the time bell rang, the female pro walked over to the corner Aron was leaning against, flashing Aron a smile from behind a yellow and black headgear.

Aron and 'Wasp', as her nickname was, traded casual romantic banter for a few seconds before noticing me and Kirby. These two are the local lovebirds, Wasp here hired Aron to train her a year ago, and by pure coincidence they're getting married next fall. When the dark woman noticed me and my cousin she raised an eyebrow, looking over the girl who'd borrowed her gear. Kirby broke her vow of silence to loudly thank her for letting her use the headset, women's sparring gear is hard to find this season.

Wasp smiled and shrugged, always full of herself. We call her that because of this slip jab she has. And her sense of humor. She even mentioned her custom-set, the yellowjacket-striped black and yellow thing she was wearing, had just arrived that morning. And Kirb' could have the one she'd borrowed. Aron and I shared glances as the girl I was training leapt up through the ropes and hugged his fiancée. We pried them apart eventually and Kirinia and I caught my usual commuter train back home.

When we got home I spent some time doing more Fenton research, this time looking for dates and locations. Every once in a while I'd glance over from my computer to see Kirby walk by, wearing a white tube top, cut-offs she'd made out of a pair of my old black jeans, bare feet except for a toe ring, and the blue leather headgear Wasp had given her. When she came back up holding a bag of chips, I asked why she was wearing it. She shrugged, the ear-guards tapping her shoulders.

"It's comfortable."

I shook my head to myself, going back to tracking down Danny's college applications.

But hey, I have some new leads. According to Tucker's notebook the technology used in ghost portals wasn't top-notch at the time. Apparently it was revolutionary, yes, but judging by my search engine results most of the components have been long since replaced or updated. The Fenton Portal has been running the same system for decades. Sam mentioned they made some modifications without the Fenton Family knowing that would hopefully prevent another Halfa being created. Well, didn't that work out nicely!

Now, I'm guessing from some old magazine interviews that Jack and Maddie weren't focused on technological advancement. Once they made the portal all they did was add some nifty extras like a decoder lock and a built-in mini-fridge. I'm serious. Jack must have gotten thirsty while he cast an ecto-fishing-pole into the portal for hours at a time. Jack seems like the kind of guy who get face-hugged by an alien egg-sac because he thought it was a drinking fountain. With spidery legs and a three foot tail.

So, why is it some of these ghosts can go back home whenever they wish, but not flash back to our realm? Honestly I have nothing but theories. Every time they do it there's a blue glow, and a similar shockwave effect. I've been looking into Vlad's company projects. Some of which involved dimensional technology and warp capabilities that the US Government tested and found it to be worthless. Masters himself worked on he projects, why would he put his whole company behind a dud? They didn't know it, but I think they may be making ghost technology.

Some technology magazine did promotional pictures for the warp portal the Senior Vlad made before he 'passed away'. It looked like the portal in the Fenton's basement. In fact I saw a similar structure in Val Gray's warehouse base, except it looked like it was in progress. Before 'Vlad Junior' took over the company most of the funds were going towards this portal. Sam says he already had one. Why make another?

I leaned back in my well-worn desk chair, staring at the posed photos of the worthless portal. Where did it go that it was so worthless? The Ghost Zone could be used as a transportation method if you're stupid enough to go in there. But the US Feds tested this thing and openly said they didn't want it. Vlad probably wanted it that way, he could keep the prototype as a collector's item and retire. Then change his form, and let his 'son' direct the company towards more financial goals. He switched goals shortly after Danny disappeared.

Was he shifting to a new phase of his master plan, or did he succeed in taking out Danny and justwrap it up? Strangely enough there have been no major supernatural events since Danny supposedly passed away. Why didn't Vlad go all out, with no one to stop him? He had a clear run to the last base. Why did he stop at third? Does World Domination lose its appeal?

Jazz and Sam both left in the early morning, I'm not sure if they're traveling together now or if they just wanted some one to talk to on the plane. Wherever they were it's a bit late for me to ask Sam any new questions. If I hadn't gone out of my way to help out Kirby I would have had the time. Just another guilt trip, I guess.

I cut my research short when I heard something plop down on the bed behind my chair, I looked over and saw that one girl who lives down the hall reclined on my bed and flicking through channels. She was still wearing the dark blue boxing helmet. I stared at her for a second, wondering if she even knew she was wearing it.

"…so…eh…you have anything else to do but hang around me?"

She shook her padding-clad head.

"_Nada_."

I felt my brow twitch.

"…you know, sometimes when a person clings to another person for extended periods of time it results in violent episodes."

She stopped surfing, ending on a music channel.

"It's okay Cuz', you're not that annoying."

…I wonder if I threw myself out the window right now, would she come in the ambulance with me and file her nails next to my bed while I'm in a coma…

The Next Day

I gritted my teeth as I crouched back and jumped to the side, covering my eyes as the sidewalk section I'd been standing on cracked and shattered under the weight of a green fist bigger than I was. I shot into the air, landing on the awning of hot dog stand on the street corner. Standing in the center of an abandoned four-way intersection was what looked like a three-story tall gorilla, bright green from head to toe, with red eyes and two extra arms sticking out of the sides of its Winnebago sized torso.

The good news? The area cleared out before it could hurt anyone. The bad news? Look up. What's not to get, the whole giant monkey thing, the undead thing, or the extra arms? Speaking of which, its left extra limb pulled back in a sucker punch, shooting straight toward the hot dog stand. I flew up and over the thing's golf-cart sized head as it sent the stand flying back into a marble wall. More good news, I'm faster than it could ever dream of. More bad news, my blasts aren't even hurting him and there's no way in Wisconsin I'm going to box this thing.

I noticed I was standing behind it and twisted around to set up for another smash. I braced myself in a crouch once again. I find it gives me more acceleration when taking off. I rethought my 'attack' plan as it shifted its weight back for another punch. It can't touch me but I can't exactly hurt it either. It flipped up into the air as it swiped its hand horizontally over the sidewalk. I shot off in mid-air into higher air space and started circling him at a good pace, trying to distract him and/or find a weakness.

Three circles later I got an idea. I swooped down and landed right on top of his head, whistling with two fingers to get his attention. Hey, if this works in the cartoons…

He roared in the usual gorilla manner, beating on his chest with two arms and swung the other pair onto his head as I stepped off his head and dropped onto the concrete like a feather, covering my ears for effect as he hit himself. I ran over to the sidewalk to watch him fall, my hands on my hips proudly.

…he just shook his head slightly and started moving to hit me again. Well, this just shows that cartoon logic isn't worth jack…just a second, giant green fist coming at me, priorities first. I step to the side a couple feet and his hairy fist rushes past like a subway train, ruffling my bangs as I stand there with my hands in my pockets.

As he pulls his fist back at an equally fast rate I try to figure something out. How the heck did Spiderman do this? Usually around this time the villain says something to himself rather loudly, perfectly detailing his greatest weakness. Right as I went to take off again while he pulled back his fist, a red light shot out of nowhere and landed between his eyes. He screamed, all four hands groping for his face as he forgets all about me.

I twisted my head around, calculating the angle of the shot and seeing a red figure perched on the corner of a rooftop, holding a rather large weapon angled down at the beast. I looked back at my foe and saw he was being pelted with red energy blasts. Which unlike my little fireballs appeared to really hurt. I shot off around the screaming behemoth. And stopping in mid-air next to the armor-strapped red sniper. I crossed my arms, flashing a smirk as I recognized the red and black chopper helmet. Oh yeah, sometimes in comics a guest star shows up.

"Fancy seeing you here…"

She didn't turn her head, still firing at the thing's face as it kept twisting around. Nonetheless she responded.

"I've been watching. You don't know about the fur thing, do you?"

I scratched my head, looking at the brute. Looked like nothing but green fur to me.

"This is one of Vlad's pets. Recently he made their fur blast resistant. You've gotten this guy sweaty enough that his face is exposed."

…I _so_ knew that…yeah, I did…I watched her nail his face every time with the same firing position. I shrugged, snapping both fingers and starting a dual barrage at the same place her shots were landing.

"This is why we should talk more often Any other crucial ghost weaknesses?"

As I rolled off blast after blast like a tennis trainer the ape began to weaken, and soon enough it fell to its side. Melting into a green ooze splatter as it hit the ground. Val made a show of slowly lowering her gun to her helmet and blowing on it even though there was no smoke. I on the hand raised both hands to my face and blew on my smoking palms to relieve the slight burning sensation. Val tilted her visor back, revealing a section of her face from her eyes to her chin from behind the thick helmet.

"How long you two been out here?"

I glance at the electric billboard on a drug store, squinting through the green splat marks to catch the time.

"…couple hours…"

I did a double take at the digital clock before turning back to the ghost hunter. She raised an eyebrow at my suddenly urgent attitude.

"Well, thanks for the tip and all, but I _really_ have to get out of here…"

She gave me a blank, rather cold look as she flipped her visor back down and holstered the gun. I just gave her a nod and shot off West, towards the movie theater I'd been standing outside of when the ape attacked. I thought about Val as she disappeared in the distance behind me. I'm not going to guess how she got on the roof top. Or how her weaponry mimics ghost energy. But hey, I'm still alive and so is she, nothing of my concern.

As my destination came into view under me I saw the lines outside had disappeared. I groaned, going invisible and landing on the empty street as I saw I was too late, people were streaming out the front doors. I walked behind a magazine stand, and when I walked off the other side I was solid, human, and wearing the same clothes I'd came in when me and Kirby went to the movies.

Don't laugh, I'm not making this up. I was dressed in an open-front brown cloak going down to my black boots, the open part revealing a beige tunic deal under it with gray baggy pants. Strapped onto the extra-thick belt was what looked like a flashlight.

The people coming out of the movies made me look like Mr. Casual. A bunch of heavy-set guys walked by with their popcorn cartons, wearing outfits similar to mine but more elaborate and expensive, and barely fit their waistlines. A college-age bald girl ran by with two tails on the back of her head. Then three guys in plastic white armor and gas masks.

Then finally Kirby broke out from the crowd of costumed fans wearing what looked like a bikini top made out of gold coils and brown fabric looped over her shoulders like a female support device, and that's about how much it covered her. One bare midriff later and she had a split skirt thing down to her ankles, just showing off cloth soft-toe boots with gold trim. Oh yeah, she also had her hair tightly braided and rolled up on both sides of her head to look like earmuffs. Hey, no headgear at least.

Her smile perked up a bit as she walked over to where I was slouched over under the weight of my robe thing. She went to look at her watch, but remembered she was dressed like a slave girl.

"…You missed it, Cuz'."

I sighed, knowing perfectly well I had missed the premier of a movie that's been re-released in theaters 23 times since it was first made in the 1970s. We even came in costume like all the other nerds. And now I have to wait till next month when they add in a new sound effect or something to do this again. I was about to suggest we get to the bike when I saw something flash by some one's legs in the crowd.

I pushed Kirby to the side as I plucked the flashlight off my belt, and creatively using my ghost energy powers to make a beam extend from the flashlight, creating a three foot long green blade of light. Kirby stared at my little special effect, raising her hand and opening her mouth to say something but falling flat. I explained in a serious tone...

"…I just saw an Ewok…"

She nodded suddenly, understanding in an instant. She reached over gently and put a hand on my arm, lowering the ghost-blade to the ground so it wouldn't clothesline anyone. She said in a soothing voice.

"Alan…it was just a kid in a costume…or a really, really short guy with no life…"

I looked at her for a few seconds before snapping the thumb of my free hand, causing the 'sword' or whatever to disappear. You may live today, Ewok, but I will find you… A guy walking past saw me ditch the light thing and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Dude! How'd you do that?"

I stared at the elderly nerd blankly, before glancing down at the flashlight I held.

"Um…"

…okay, this is awkward….Kirby came to my rescue.

"…he got the collector's edition!"

The nerd grunted, nodding in understanding before wadding off to find his mom's car. I leaned over to the Princess/Kirby and mumbled we should get out of here. These sci-fi types give me the creeps in large numbers. Yeah, I just took on King Kong's retarded cousin and I'm afraid of a bunch of old guys in costumes who make laser sound effects while playing with toy swords.

One…interesting motorcycle ride back home and we were back at the ranch, me sweating like a call girl in church in this robe thing, while Kirby's teeth we tapping out Morse Code in Spanish. My parents were reading the newspaper in the living room when we came in. My father noticed our outfits and casually asked.

"Did Greedo shoot first?'

Kirby and I nodded sadly as we ascended the stairs, my father loudly cursed before returning to his stock page.

Author's Notes

You're not going to believe this, but some sections of this chapter are plot-based. I'm serious, it surprised me too. Well, making fun of a movie series that I DO NOT OWN was pure character development and…um…artistic stuff. The people at Alan's gym, Kirby's last name, and even Val's helpful appearance are going to count later on. The thug in the alley is Alan's inner-cop peeking through all the healed concussions and sarcasm generators inside his head. And I also write darker-toned comic book style stories, a very hard habit to break. Thanks for reading, and please beg George Lucas not to Death Star my writing-bunker.


	11. Chapter 11

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

Warning: Alan heavy chapter, not as much Phantom stuff. But a LOT of plot movement.

My sleeping pattern has been getting worse. I've old you about some of the time I sleep like everyone else, other times I'm up all night and never even yawn. This is what I call my ghostly insomnia. Have you ever seen a ghost sleep? Neither have I. Maybe that's why I can only get some shut eye half of the time. But lately I've been up at night more than ever. Our tale starts with me getting my first hour of sleep in nearly a week.

…and being jerked out of it by a thin magazine whacking me square in the nose.

I shot upright, flipping the pamphlet that hit me onto my lap as I looked around to find myself lying on an overstuffed couch in the top floor library. Towering over the short-legged couch was my cousin, arms crossed and her eyes locked on my idle form like a sniper sight. I glanced between my attacker and the magazine, seeing it was one of those grocery store tabloids about aliens and other fake stuff. I glanced back up at Kirby, who hadn't moved an inch.

"…uh…was I snoring?"

She didn't laugh. Her blue-emerald eyes just narrowed slightly, forcing me to glance down and notice the headlines of the magazine she'd thrown at me.

_Aliens go on strike, no more abductions?_

_Elvis's son not really dead, he says so!_

_Angel in leather jacket seen at crime scenes, appears on film!_

I was about to read the one about talking cows when the third one caught my eye. I slowly looked back up at Kirby, who had softened her glare slightly but was now sitting on the table with her arms loosely crossed. I cleared my throat, pulling an explanation out of thin air.

"…they're fake?"

She extended one of her giraffe legs and flipped the front page over to one of the splash pages featuring pictures of the 'biker-angel' as they called it. I squinted at the cheaply printed film captures.

"...so he has my haircut, white is a popular color."

She just kept giving me that look. A month ago and I'd be on my knees with this kind of attack, but I've built up a slight defense to it. Instead of curling up in the fetal position I just sighed, causing her mouth to curl in a triumphant but stern smile. She nodded for me to go on. I picked up the cheap read and flipped the pages as I told her about my recent night life.

"I've just been checking out some high-profile cases, seeing if I could help track anyone."

A sharp, Latin-forged remark.

"They have pictures of you. They're pieces of shit and you can't even make out your skin color, but it's you."

I shrunk into the couch slightly, rubbing my neck in realization. Kirby reached up and rubbed her eyes, her drill sergeant disposition melting away instantly. I figured out later it's very hard for her to look serious. Heck, that little glare she used just now may have pulled an underdeveloped muscle, takes more to frown than to smile.

"_Primo_, how did they even see you?"

I shook my head in disbelief as I looked over the various pictures of normal crime scenes with a blurry white figure with a dark torso on the sides of the pictures.

"I was in stealth mode. This cheap film they use must pick up heat glare or something."

She nodded, her face going back to her usual sunny outlook as she tilted her head sideways to look at the pictures that honestly looked like a ten year old dumped water colors on a picture and it came out looking like a person.

"My friend mentioned these on the phone so I picked up a copy. I thought it was just more fake stuff until she mentioned how it only appeared on major crime scenes."

I nodded, focused on the blurry specter that looked like it was leaning on the wall of an expensive condo turned shooting range. If you squinted, it was like its head was looking at the bullet marks in the wall next to it. They were made using soft-texture ammunition, harder to trace using firing pin tracks.

The problem is, they aren't clean shots. It can take a whole round to get a guy down with these things and that's if you're a great marksmen, judging by numerous discharges in the walls this guy should have stuck to a BB gun.

"…why'd you make a big deal over this? You can't tell it's me, I've never heard of a Halfa working for the FBI, and I don't think Vlad reads these magazines are closely as your friend does. Speaking of which, did they ever catch Batboy?"

I handed the flimsy stack of newspaper scrap to Kirby over the gap in the furniture, she shook her head sadly.

"I asked her about that when she called, he's still out there."

I rolled my eyes, how could a mutant bat creature be on the loose for decades at a time and still be known as 'Batboy'? Are there too many copyright laws for him to grow up and be Batman(Property and Trademark of DC Comics)? I reached down and adjusted the beltline of the cutoffs I'd been wearing when I snuck up here to catch a much-needed rest. Away from the staircase that Kirby clomped up and down every ten minutes at random intervals.

"…Kirb'? Why'd you look at me like I killed some one?"

She flipped through the cheap ads for weight loss machines and sex life enhancing hats as she stated plainly.

"I figured it'd make you feel guilty enough to take me to the gym, the TV channels are busted and the internet hates me."

My eyebrow rose from the seemingly dead, moving an amazing centimeter North.

"…you still can't work a web browser, huh?"

She snapped the trashy magazine closed, tossing it over her shoulder onto the table as she started examining her toes while she sat cross-legged on the oak table.

"Nah, Kerri taught me how to do that yesterday. But now every time I go to a web site or something a bunch of jerks start saying I'm a guy pretending to be a girl."

"…welcome to the internet. Where men are men, women are desperately lonely men, and children are undercover cops. So, we're going to work out or what?"

Four Sweaty Hours Later

"Jab. Jab. Hook. Cross. Jab."

I responded by carving that set of punches into the logo side of the bag, behind which Kirby called out combinations while she held the bag to judge how hard each punch hit. Our workouts had gone smoothly and we had time to kill. She proposed this 'game' out of the blue, and here we are.

"Weave jab. Hook to the body. Uppercut."

As I slid to the side while throwing a jab, she called out the body hook. I smiled a bit, which she didn't see as she held the bag with both hands in front of her. I pulled back ever so slightly and launched an arcing cross into the belly of the bag. As I did everyone around us stopped skipping or punching to watch it hit its target. They knew _this_ punch.

It didn't look like those mighty punches sluggers are famous for. If anything, it just looked like a well-thrown right hook that may hurt a little. But when this quick, finesse based punch hit the bag a sound rang out like a side of beef hitting a brick wall. Everyone who heard it, let alone saw it winced. A few of them had been on the business end of that back when I was on the prowl.

My cousin on the other hand, had never even heard of my punch. I heard a yelping squeal from behind the bag as it swung back violently like no one was holding it. I reached one of my gloved fists and stopped the bag from swinging before peeking around the bulging side of the heavy-duty bag.

Sprawled out on the floor a good eight feet behind the bag, Kirby lay staring at the ceiling. Thankfully she had been wearing that headgear of hers when the punch sent her flying, even with the bag in front of her the shockwave got her. She eventually pushed herself into a sitting position, the silent gym waiting for her reaction as they held in smirks and guffaws.

She reached up to scratch her forehead under the padded bar of her helmet before slowly panning her eyes around the gym at everyone else. She asked in a voice that everyone heard because of the pure tone, not the volume.

"…did ya'll know he could do that?"

…she sometimes did a white trash accent when she was dazed, tired or coming down from a sugar rush. Everyone, young or old, black or white nodded at the golden girl who hadn't gotten off the floor yet. She sighed, pushing up onto one arm as she rolled her eyes.

"Next time we'll put the bag against the _wall_, and I call the punches…"

Some smartass called out from the locker room.

"We tried that once, we made the best of it and turned the hole into a closet"

Everyone except my training partner and I laughed, more at the private joke that is my right hook than the way Kirby stumbled onto her feet, finding her cat-shaming balance within seconds. All while cursing in Spanish. Man, who ever lands this girl in a church is just going to have a ball of a marriage, right after I threaten him with an ice pick about even _thinking_ of hurting her.

After she dusted herself off and bowed to her new audience, we dumped our equipment into my old military duffel bag before heading out to the train station. Until I spotted my Aunt Janet at a fruit market. And I made the mistake of nudging Kirby and pointing out her mother in the crowd. It turns out our Cuban grandmother is off on a Vegas weekend, Kirby is welcome in her own home for a change.

One thing led to another and we ended up having dinner in the extensive apartment above the dance studio where Janet and her husband lived, and had lived ever since she bought the studio. At first it was just two rooms. As hey got a financial platform they slowly bought the other tiny apartments before buying the entire building and remodeling it into a large home. Kirby's father, a very skilled carpenter of all trades who helped me rebuild the rotting barn a few years back.

My Uncle Carlos wasn't always the handyman in the family. Back in the day he was a detective with a sterling arrest record and a police academy shooting range named after him. You'd guess it with one look at him. He's a bit taller than me, which is saying something. About the same size, but I'm more the bodybuilder type while he's the construction worker type. He also spends every morning grooming a stupid Zorro-style mustache that he only had because Janet loved it.

Does all this surprise you? Me being the nephew of a cop, detective and carpenter? If it did, you need to go back to junior high and get your diploma. And as I've mentioned, Kirby and I were like siblings as kids. Hope that explains a few things. When Janet led us up to steps to their home, he was in his workshop putting a spray finish on an old Oriental table, Janet collects foreign furniture.

The mother and daughter started working away in the kitchen, chattering in Spanish about the goings on in the neighborhood. I stood there like a POW until Janet laughed and said I could run off and play with my uncle. I let out a whoop, and skipped like a kindergartener down the hall to his domain where he was finishing up the table finish. When he saw me he cut the pressure on the spray gun, pulled his mask down and smirked at me the same was Kirby did.

"_Alano! _Where you been? That daughter of mine giving you any trouble?"

He looked menacing as he pulled off his leather gloves, I pretended to be nervous.

"…No, Sir…"

We both broke into an identical chuckle, the ongoing joke in this family was, you guessed it, Kirby. Her father joked about being strict with her, even though he was the kinder parent. And my aunt could go on for hours about her daughter being an unholy combination of her own and her husband's worst habits. Yeah, they loved her more than…eh…more than Frost does, that dog never gets off her bed.

I caught up with my uncle as I helped him restore some more furniture my aunt had imported. This is what he does with his spare time, roll with my aunt's hobbies. He has the time, anyhow. When I was four or five he led a bust in the headquarters of a drug ring..

It didn't go so well, he took sixteen bullets point blank. The weird thing? A week in the hospital later he was fine, only one of the shots had even come close to seriously hurting him. The rest of them? They were still lodged in various parts of his body. That's enough insurance money to retire young.

For a while he loved living the easy life.Helping Jane a the studio, sudying carpentry. But after a short while he started hating it. He began trying to get involved in freelance detective cases and the like, the local department keeps telling him he's been through enough and he needs a break.

He got so fed up he started keeping track of every major unsolved crime in the area. Without his wife knowing, Janet and Kirby both hate police work. Kirby caught on a while back that her father had been teaching me the trade, but her mother still thinks I just hang around her husband too much.

As I helped him re-attach a clawed chair leg, he looked past the doorway to see if anyone was in earshot before asking if I've read anything about the Belanksi case. I thought over what to say before mentioning reading about soft-core ammunition being suspected. I didn't mention the victim had terrible taste in carpeting. We whispered about these unsolved murders and thefts while covering our banter with the sound of sanding or power tools.

When dinner was served we kneeled around the knee-height table to eat. Where we eating Asian food? Actually, Kirb's family just liked to kneel when they ate, so they used these low tables but skipped the chopsticks. As I sampled the three kinds of chicken Kirby mentioned to her father about her becoming a boxer.

He stared in disbelief at his daughter as I gave myself the Heimlich maneuver with the back of my chair. He quietly asked what she meant. She smiled at my choking form before going on about the last few weeks at the gym and in the barn.

By the time she had finished and I popped out that chicken bone, my uncle had lost all signs of understanding as he sat there pulling on the end of his famed mustache. I thought I was going to end up being nailed inside a Chinese treasure chest until he asked me what style I'd been teaching his daughter. Cops have boxing leagues, do the math.

"…eh…well, I was a street swarmer who could weave…she more or less copies me."

He kept adjusting his facial hair as he stared at the place I was sitting, but not at me directly. Suddenly the side of his mouth curled in a manner identical to way Kirby had that very morning.

"Alan. I want you to teach my daughter as much as you can, but on one condition."

I stayed silent. Dear god, I have to kill some one don't I?

"…she wears headgear. Pass the salsa."

I slowly pushed the bowl over to him. He thanked me in their native language before starting a new conversation with Janet about where they get their furniture from. My eyes drifted over to Kirby, who was trying to tear a steak apart by holding it with her knife and pulling on it with her teeth. She eventually snapped a piece off, and as she started chewing she flashed me a wink. Why? That's all I've been asking myself lately.

After the other parts of the meal had been eaten Kirby and I had to catch a twilight-hour train back home. As I snatched up my duffel bag Janet whispered something to Kirby, who just shook her head in response before kissing her mother on the cheek and bouncing down the steps to the building entrance. When I caught up with her on the sidewalk I asked.

"What'd your mom ask?"

She idly watched a tandem bicycle float by.

"She asked about that vision she had of you flying, if anything happened. I told her you got a motorcycle, that's about it."

I stopped dead on the side of the sidewalk as Kirby kept walking before looking over her shoulder at me in confusion.

"…you…never told anyone…"

She glanced in both directions like a cat turning a corner before shrugging, closing her eyes to show how little she cared.

"Who'd believe me?"

She turned back around and continued walking. I jogged up next to her and we walked in silence to the train station. Well, she was humming one of her original tunes so it wasn't exactly silent. Then again, are things ever silent when this girl is involved?

That Night

From a couple hundred feet up I had a clear view of the old country roads. It was an old road going through a forested mountain area, mostly tourists and the like coming and going in the direction of the reserved camp sites. I was flying high in the night sky, following the road by the lights of the cars and the shiny trailers some had. Why was I out in the middle of nowhere following camper traffic? Here comes my reason now…

A sound of screeching brakes and swerves came like a wave down the dark road as a glowing object shot right down the middle of the two-lane road, not changing direction or avoiding the other cars. From up here it looked like a neon green station wagon. With a brightly painted Confederate flag on the roof. Even from up here the sounds of drunken yells and whoops in a Southern dialect coming from the car were detectable.

The car was going…fast. Insanely fast. Speeding right against traffic, causing the other cars to swerve or crash into the gates on the side of the road as the deceased hillbilly drivers yelled out what a hoot it was. I narrowed my brightly glowing eyes as I kicked my flight speed up a notch and started a shallow descent toward the secluded highway, planning to attack from above so I could control which way they crashed, last thing these poor tourists need are more accidents.

Soon enough I was flying over the beat-up car, it looked like it'd been through a couple accidents. Maybe the ghosts inside were re-enacting how they died, that would explain why those voices sound intoxicated. I was still invisible, last thing I need is some one taking pictures of their wrecked car for insurance company and catch me on film. Unfortunately for some reason this cuts down on my top flight speed, must be that concentration thing again.

Soon enough the highway was evacuated by the local police to avoid more collisions. So now these hoodlums were just tearing rubber down an empty road in the middle of the night. The yelling sounded like different three people, won't this be a walk in the candy factory. I made a sharp descent down so I was flying right next to the driver side window, which was open along with all the other cheap roll-downs that they haven't made since the 70s.

Leaning over the chain-link steering wheel was a green-skinned, buck toothed guy with a trucker hat pulled sideways over his white, greasy hair as he laughed at a joke that no one told. He didn't notice the two hundred pound guy in the jacket flying outside his window, two feet away. He was showing off how he could drive with his eyes closed.

In the passenger seat was a bleached blonde girl, wearing torn cutoffs and a red checked shirt tied above her midriff. Wow, sleezy trailer girls also come in green. And rolling around in the back seat was some lanky guy wearing just a pair of overalls over a scrawny green chest, sporting a cowboy hat pulled over his face. They kept laughing as he swerved all over the road, I had to swerve back and forth to stay with them. I raised one hand to my mouth, keeping the other extended in front of me as I flew.

"…you kids mind pulling over?"

The driver snapped his bloodshot green eyes and gawked at me for a second before grinning, showing off his cracked teeth and slamming the sick shift to the side. The car took off in a cloud of exhaust, leaving me coughing and blinded as I kept flying forward. When I broke away from the fumes I saw the green wagon tearing off into the distance, gaining more speed by the second.

I went all out trying to catch up with them again, but eventually I just slowed to a stop on the side of a road and dropped down onto a tree stump. Great, now idiots are selling their soul so they can get some extra horsepower in their roach coach. I dropped my face forward into my hands, rubbing my forehead as I wondered what to do. The bad guy got away. What now? It's not like I can cut to a commercial break. I let my hands slide off my sweat-filmed face as I heard something. What the…

My eyes shot open as I saw that same green car fly past, this time going the opposite direction. I stared down the road and watched it disappear just like it had before. Then a few minutes later they came whooping back, not seeing me on the side of the road.

My eyebrow jerked up in confusion around the fifth time. I stood up and crossed my arms, watching the way they shot back and forth without a care in the world. If I stepped into the road they'd just swerve around me, and at that speed I'd probably snap into quarters.

Maybe their territory is limited to this road? Is this the path they died on, so they have to stick to it? A few more drive-bys later I clenched my hand into a fist before throwing it out before me, opening my palm and letting a handful of glowing green spikes fly out of my hand and clatter onto the road. I stepped back and put two fingers in my ears, this was going to be loud.

I braced myself as they came around again. They screamed by when they saw me standing there, waving like drunks right up until their tires hit the spikes, popping all four of them with a deafening pop and lurching them forward. I opened my eyes to view the damage, seeing just black concrete with my spikes still glowing from it.

I slowly turned my head to see the car still going, now sending up sparks on both sides as they ran _on the rims_. And judging by the screams this was very entertaining to these freaks as they sped down their little stretch of road.

I just took a deep breath and smacked myself in the face. Once again, cartoon logic will get you nowhere. I sat back down on that stump as they sped past again the other way, showering my feet with hot sparks but I didn't notice.

I thought stopping ghosts was supposed to be fast paced. I was sitting here watching a car speed by that I was supposed to catch but couldn't. Now I know how that one coyote felt, all I need now is for their horn to go 'Meep-Meep' every time they passed.

I reached into my jacket pockets and emptied them out onto the tree stump, maybe I had something useful. Let's see, gum wrappers…Kirby must be wearing my clothes again. Pocket knife, won't touch ghosts. Keys to the bike and my house. The little owner's manual for the Termisake…wait…

I stared at the motorcycle pamphlet for a second before sitting down on the stump, making myself comfortable and opening the front cover.

"Chapter One, you and your transmission…"

That damn car went by again, the girl in the passenger seat yelled she liked my hair. She pronounced it 'Har'. Man, if you die drunk you _stay_ drunk? Or are these punks just idiots? Okay, back to transmissions…

3 Hours Later

"…and wipe with a damp cloth…"

I closed the little book, having spent my precious time reading the entire thing. The ghost-hick mobile had gone by a few hundred times while I sat there reading. I stuck the little bookle into my back pocket before hopping onto my feet and walking onto the side of the road.

I waited, and a second later the car and the hillbillies sped by, still enjoying this. I watched them speed off before turning my eyes back to the road and closing them. I clenched my fists and teeth as I concentrated for a few seconds, and when I pried my eyelids apart slightly, what I saw made them shoot wide open.

Parked in front of me was an exact replica of the motorcycle I love like a girlfriend. Exact model and build, same seat style even. Identical, except for this one being painted neon green instead of crimson. I circled it slowly, examining all the parts to see if it could actually work.

After checking the shocks I slowly mounted it, leaning it off the kickstand and taking hold of the handles. I wondered whether to turn the green key in the ignition, or whether to check it over again. I was worried I got a detail wrong, like forgetting to make brake cables or fuel lines. Why do you think I read that thing for three hours? I had to memorize it. Right when I was about to hop off I heard the car coming again behind me. I hopped back on and took the key in my hand. Well, it's not like I'm strapped for time…

The incoming muffler sound finally got to me. I gave the key a quick twist as I held my breath. I let it out in a sigh as I felt the bike come to life under me, the sound of a nearly silent engine heating up between my knees. I tightened my grip on the starter the car came closer, and I muttered to myself in a voice identical to that of my second grade teacher.

"Mrs. Fenton, your son is honestly an idiot…he can barely read a stop sign, and his art projects look like train wrecks!"

…and I just memorized 260 pages of schematics and made a working motorcycle with my _mind_…and…eh, ghost powers…

I shot my eyes to the right as the car tore by, the drunken yells with it. As they started to speed away I jerked a lever and held tight as the chopper shot forward over the pavement, quickly getting in line with the car I'd been chasing for close to four hours. I yelled out the feeling as the wind cut through my silver bangs. Take that, Mrs. Turnberry. Oh yeah, and those art projects sucked!

I drifted over, once again next to the driver's window. This time I whistled to catch his attention, he did a double take when he saw the bike.

"…where ya'll been? We's been waitin' for ya'!"

…so, they kept driving back and forth because they wanted me to chase them…is the afterlife _that_ boring? I glared as I leaned over the bars of my bike, the hick grinned back. Then he slammed the steering wheel toward me, sharply swerving the car right into me. I cursed, tilting myself parallel to the road and drifting out of crashing range as the passengers yelled that I was a dead man. Tell me something I don't know.

He saw me dodge and veered over again to slam my bike, this time I slammed the gas and shot ahead of the fender, arching in front of the car and braking so I was now coasting next to the passenger window. Now, remember we're going above the speed limit by a couple _hundred_ miles…when the female ghost-hick spat at me out her window the wad shot sideways down the road, having barely gone a foot forward. I would have spat back but she yelled to her boyfriend which side I was on, and I gunned it to avoid another sideswipe, this time staying in front of them.

My plan worked, they hit the gas and tried to run my smaller vehicle down from behind. I responded by gunning it whenever their rusted bumper came close to my back tire. This went on for a few quick miles before I called back to my pursuers.

"…how are the brakes on that thing?"

Some one in the back seat yelled back.

"…wha?"

I swerved to the right, letting one arm loose from the handles to give them the finger as I dovetailed out from in front of them, they shot off past me. Right as they yelled for the driver to turn around, there was a metal crash and the sound of scraping rocks, adding sparks to the ones being created by the car's bare wheels.

I did a half donut through their dust cloud, slowing down and hitting the brake when my headlights revealed a torn metal bar in front of me. I hit the kickstand, dismounting and walking to find that beyond the mangled gate was a sharp little cliff ending in a straight drop, gotta love these mountain paths.

I walked all the way to the rocky edge, looking down at the dark abyss that the full moon didn't shed any light on. I summoned a flame and launched it down off the cliff, watching it go down all the way to see if its green light reflected off anything metal. It stubbed out in the dirt at the bottom of the cliff, revealing that the car and the passengers had disappeared after going off the cliff. Am I the only ghost who remembers I can fly?

I walked along the metal guard bar that the car had gone clear through. The headlights from my still running bike flickered on something, and I saw a tiny wooden shrine on the edge of the drop, a little framed picture of three teenagers in a car identical to the one those ghosts had been driving.

I stared at the little shrine for a second, reading the date and time of the accident that happened decades ago before looking over at the chopper and snapping my fingers. It disappeared into thin air, along with the glow of its headlights leaving me in the dark. But before the light fully faded I muttered.

"Learning disabled…HA!"

So, how'd I know about the cliff? I flew here, I saw the cliffs along some of the roads and thought of them when the car started tailing me. Did I send them off like that on purpose? Yes. Can I do that thing where I make a ghost-cycle again? I could, but I'd have to read the entire manual over again to refresh my memory. I took a deep breath of the country air as I looked up at the stars. And one thought crossed my mind.

Where….the heck…was I?

A coyote howled in the distance. Yeah, I'm screwed. Okay, I can memorize a motorcycle blueprint, why can't I remember which highway I took here?

Two Days Later, Please Don't Ask How I Got Home

Coupons, coupons, dating service, dating service coupons, death threats…

I flipped my junk mail into one of Kirby's guitar cases, I was stretched out on the floor of the loft and surrounded by instruments that I knew from bridge to pick but couldn't play to save an orphanage from a guitar-hating alien warlord. Why was I up here? I found a bunch of my mail up here while looking for one of the hoodies Kirby stole from me. I'm serious, she has a stack of letters addressed to me that she forgot about.

A week ago she took upon herself the responsibility of collecting the mail every day and delivering it to each Fenton Family Member(code-named FFM units), usually by slipping the letters under their door. This system works fine for the twins' fan mail and my folks, but she usually forgets that she has a stack of perfume-scented letters addressed to me with a return address in France sitting on her pile of music paper scraps.

So here I was, weeding out the unwanted advertisements and occasionally reading a letter actually written by another person. The internet has been going through some issues, paper mail is back as a fad. I got a few letters from old friends, one of which is getting married in a week to a girl who is going to run off with everything he owns. And he knows it.

Next up, we have a postcard from Rita. She's still down in Puerto Rico doing missionary work in an area that isn't exactly a tribal village. It's more like a small town that just doesn't have a church, she got the short end of the stick in this Peace Corps thing. Who's Rita? She was my trainer's wife since high school. Over the years we've gotten to be pretty close, in fact she wrote a P.S. about her younger daughter's son asking how his Uncle Al is doing.

Uncle Al. My trainer really considered me a son, his grandkids act like I'm their real uncle. I haven't seen any of them since the funeral. He had talked about writing a will during his last years, but none of us met with his lawyer to talk about it. We all took it pretty hard. Walt was just that kind of guy, his wife took it all in stride while I was out of it for months.

I remember a few nights before that fated hotel convention, so few months ago yet so long. After months of dull shock, I entered the next stage of grieving and pretty much went into denial. For the first few months as a ghost I told people I retired for education purposes.

In fact I told myself that right up until Kirby pulled it out into the open, asking why I gave up my chance at the rings. I still haven't built up the nerve to openly thank her for that.

Speak of the she-devil. I saw the barn door creak open, followed by the creaks of some one climbing the ladders. I stashed Rita's letter under my pile of junk mail as my cousin's head popped up over the edge of the loft floor, looking around like a groundhog before seeing me and vaulting up onto her feet and walking over.

"You getting your mail, or finally letting me give you a guitar lesson?"

I waved my fanned out stack of mail as I walked around her to the ladder. She spun around so she could watch me go, watching me grab the sides of the ladder with a slightly sad expression. She was smiling of course, but it was just a smile, not a Kirby-smile.

These last couple days we haven't seen much of each other, she's been taking the train down to a recording studio and talking deals with her new agent while I've been cracking down on my Fenton research.

I slid down the worn ladder, landing on my feet softly and walking over to the door she'd left open. Right as I was about to go find Frost and try to get him to play Frisbee, I heard a voice call down from the loft. I looked over my shoulder to see Kirby standing on the edge of the loft, waving for me to come back. I walked back a few steps so I could hear her.

"…yeah, Kirb'?"

She grinned down at me, scratching her crossed arms with her stubby nails.

"…I've gotta work on a _canción_ and I'll be out here for a while…"

I nodded, stepped back to walk out again. She saw this and blurted out.

"…could you hit the bags while I play?"

My eyebrow broke its high jump record as I stared at her, she blushed slightly. For once in her lifetime, Kirby wasn't in control of a situation. I thought it over, how could I not with that begging look she was giving me?

"…I guess I could work on slip jabs…"

She tried to hide her relief, failing by smiling so widely when I went to wrap my hands. What the heck happened? Well, it seems we've developed a symbiotic relationship. She can think clearer and write songs easily when I was pounding leather on the floor below her. And I had gotten used to weaving and striking to those fast riffs that drove my parents and their old fashioned taste so crazy that her music was exiled to the barn along with my boxing.

A hopeless fighter and a talented musician working together. Being infused with Ghost DNA I can believe. Chasing the Demonic Dukes of Hazard on a magic motorcycle I can believe. But having a girl who's going to make it bigger than you ever will both financially and fame-wise, ask for your help? You people expect me to believe that Kirby and I enjoy being around, let alone need each other?

I believe it, I just don't want to.

Author's Notes

...he finally admitted it, huh? But let's get serious. Why the heck am I bringing up these nobodies in Alan's life? They're not ghosts or ghost hunters. Why did I waste a page talking about some punch? I just had to tie up some loose ends. For instance, Kirby hasn't told anyone about Alan. I've showed Kirby's family. I've introduced more of Alan's trainer, post-mortem. Alan took out the Dukes of Hazard. Okay, so that wasn't a loose end, I can just barely stand Sean William Scott, and Johnny Knoxville stole my nickname. And since when can Alan do more than just fly and punch? I'm not sure, that took me by surpise as well...Sorry if this chapter is lacking, just had to get this stuff out there.


	12. Chapter 12

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

If I went the whole distance and explained how I ended up hanging from my wrists in a basement storage room, surrounded by ghosts, you'd probably question my sanity. Among other essential attributes.

Sane or not, that's how it happened. Clamped around my wrists were two steel bracelets with bright green computer readouts next to the locks. These bracelets dangled from two steel chains suspended from the ceiling, leaving my feet dangling a few inches off the floor and my arms over my head as I idly scanned the room around me, my panic and desperation long since replaced by boredom. My jacket was still slung over my shoulders but the sleeves were torn from the goons grabbing me.

Speaking of which, they were standing there staring at me like a piece of modern art. Not scowling or glaring, just standing in a semi-circle against the shelf-lined walls with their arms crossed. This wasn't some secret base by the way, it was a janitor's room in the basement of a hotel. I'll explain later. The only light came from an old, bare bulb hanging from a wire next to where my chains were bolted.

The harsh orange glow was shining on six men in dinner jackets and dress shirts. All about seven feet tall, five feet wide, gray-skinned and sporting matching sunglasses. They all looked the same to me, but when they said something to each other their voices had some differences. Like I said, they were standing there looking at me, one with his head tilted as if I was a movie poster. After ten minutes of this, one cleared his throat and growled.

"…it's him alright…"

Another nodded, responding in a higher voice.

"Yeah. Da' boss talks about him a lot. That's him."

A third one agreed. I just rolled my eyes and muttered something. They'd been at this ever since they found me sneaking around the hallways and dragged me in here. Sure, they were strong guys and all six of them managed to drag me in here and string me up, but can't they talk about baseball or something?

I turned my head as much as I could as the door behind me opened and closed, followed by heavy footsteps. My eyes narrowed as some on e walked by on my right side, walking into the line of grunts, turning to look at me and crossing his tree-trunk arms like the rest of them. The orange glare shimmered off his dull silver body. Well, Skulker must have good cybernetic insurance. His green and black eyes burned on my suspended form as he demanded of his grunts.

"…where'd you find him?"

One shrugged, they were still looking at me while I just stared back with a raised eyebrow and a bored eye-set.

"He was goin' around lookin' for the Boss, when he was upstairs doin' his speech but he was down here."

The big lug pointed to his uniform sunglasses.

"He was invisible. Your scanners picked him up like nuttin', Mr. Skulker."

The metal skull that was Skulker's head grinned, looking at me like a pig on a stake. A few seconds of this later he leaned over slightly and muttered to the closest goon.

"…how long have you guys been working for Lord Plasmius again?"

The thug thought for a second before holding up six stumpy fingers. On the same hand. The skull-bot nodded slightly. He uncrossed his gigantic arms to walk forward, under the light as he approached where I was hanging. He smirked his iron teeth at me.

"Stuck in one of my creations once again…just like the good old days. Am I right, Halfa?"

I slowly glanced up at the bracelets, comparing them to his armor when I glanced back down. I suddenly looked straight into his optical sensors without a hint of fear. I then shrugged, kind of difficult in this manner.

"Ain't so bad. I see you got your birthday suit dry cleaned, who's your tailor?"

The hunter leaned closer, due to my hanging height his eyes were up to mine. My green eyes burned into his digital pupils as he tried to scare me. He growled.

"…like you, don't know…"

He scowled as he spun rather heavily on his heel and walked back to the goons. He leaned against a shelf, bending it slightly due to his bulk as he crossed his arms and resumed staring at his prisoner. I heard him mumble.

"…something about the eyes…"

I raised my other eyebrow at his comment, but he didn't see me react. He had shaken his head to himself while a goon looked at him, probably wondering if they'd done something wrong.

"…wha'?"

He shrugged, looking down at his spiked boots.

"Call me crazy, but that Halfa didn't look at me like the first one always did…you newbies wouldn't know."

A cold flash went down my spine, but I resumed staring blankly. It's a prisoner of war strategy. Don't show any emotion or realization. The goon looked between me and his supervisor in shock before grunting.

"…He looks the same to me…The Boss says it's the same one, Mr. Skulker."

The hunter just looked at the wall, not carrying the subject any further. They fell back into their old rhythm, their temporary leader kept staring at the wall as they talked about how I'm the guy the Boss is looking for. Right when I was about to tell them to shut the Wisconsin up Skulker stood up and walked out without a word. My eyes followed him, listening for anything after the door closed to make sure he was gone. I looked back at the small talking grunts and called out, my throat sore from them dragging me in here by the neck.

"Hey! How good do you guys see in the dark?"

They all jerked their heads at me and stared through their sunglasses. One recovered from my showing the ability to speak and responded.

"…uh…we can't?"

I slowly smirked after an hour of that seasoned POW look. I watched fear flick across their gray faces briefly as I stated in my 'ghost voice'.

"Just the answer I was looking for…"

I yelled as I suddenly swung my weight sharply to the right like a gymnast on the hanging rings, slamming one of my shoes into the single light bulb and in part shattering every trace of light in the underground room. There were several surprised grunts, followed closely by the sound of a bolt being pulled out of the ceiling. And something that closely resembled the noise a bunch of dead Italian guys make when they're being beaten into a glowing green pulp with a chain.

I closed the door to the storage room behind me, twisting my left hand out of that second bracelet and tossing it onto the floor as I turned to walk down the hallway. Right before my nose bumped into the barrel of a gigantic energy weapon pointed right at my face. I backed up an inch, squinting into the barrel before leaning over and seeing a grinning Skulker standing behind it. I sighed, crossing my arms as he undid the safety cover with his free hand.

"How'd you do it? Those sunglasses are designed to pick up ecto-energy…"

"…would that make a difference? They were wearing _sunglasses_ in a pitch black room…"

The skull-head thought this over, nodding in agreement before charging up the blaster to blow my head into the Ghost Zone. _Just_ my head mind you, not the rest of me. Well, actually I imagine that gun would just kill me outright, I'm just trying to leave a funny anecdote for you to remember me by.

Right as he started to pull the trigger, a raspy voice choked out the word 'Skulker!' from right next to where we were squared off. Both of us twisted our heads to see who it was, both scowling, wanting to get it over with. My scowl quickly deepened when I saw standing right before me, the man who I've hated ever since Sam told me the Phantom Legacy. Lord Plasmius. Also known, as Vlad.

I admit he was a bit scary at first glance. The second I turned my head his skin color caught my attention. A deathly pale shade of blue, so bright it nearly glowed. He was an inch or so taller than me, but probably just a bit heavier than Kirby despite his slightly wide shoulders. His size was slightly hidden by his wardrobe, a flowing black trench coat made of leather, ending an inch above the floor and the tips of his matching black boots. Okay, that's not so scary. Heck, it looked scarier when Keanu Reeves was wearing it. Yeah, I went there.

Above the neckline of his snap-button collar was a face that would make him a fortune if he did a pin-up in _Fangoria._ Extremely similar to that of Vlad Masters II. Except for the tiny white fangs poking over his blue lips. His hair though, was jet-black and slicked back in a ponytail just like his human form. So, why is this guy worthy of the label 'scary'? The eyes. It's all in the eyes.

Completely pupil-less, and red. Just two red orbs sunken into his pale face, the color contrast making them glow. Then again, they may glow normally. I forgot about my little position as I turned and stared into those orbs. I saw they were staring straight in their sockets at me, staring me down. I nearly gasped when I saw they were covered in neon green cracks, as if they were eggshells that had been bumped into a pan handle. And then the eggshells were so angered they sold their sunny side up souls to Satan to get revenge on the frying pan that wronged them.

I'm not sure when he'd walked up. Like I said, I didn't see him until I heard his voice. And that was that, with an ecto-gun pointed at my head I stared into the hellish eyes of my rival. His ruby eyes narrowed slightly, and I heard my assassin mutter.

"…what!"

I tilted my head slightly as the vampire-looking man kept staring straight ahead at me but didn't acknowledge my presence. He growled at the cyborg, as if the titanium giant were but another minion.

"Have you finished fixing the frames yet? That reporter only stepped on one side, after all. But those idiots upstairs want another encore and I'd like to be able read my cue cards!"

I spun my head back to Skulker, who was giving his boss a hateful look as he reached into a compartment on his waist and pulled out a pair of blue-tinted silver eyeglasses. The same nifty little pair he'd wore when he pulled me into his limo.

I did a double take back at the vampire giving me the evil eye. I raised one hand and waved it slowly. The cracked red eyes didn't react. I moved my hand closer, having the guts to wiggle my fingers in front of his face. I slowly turned and looked at Skulker, who had lowered his gun and was holding a tiny screwdriver in one giant hand and the glasses in another, fixing a bolt on the side of the lens.

He saw me looking and shrugged violently as if to say 'What?'. I pointed one thumb at the man who killed my grandfather. The cyborg tapped his eye-plate with one finger and shook his head before nodding at the glasses. He resumed fixing the eyeglasses as his boss kept staring into dead air. I stood in front of him, just looking him in the blind eye until Skulker chimed.

"…done."

Vlad grumbled and held up one hand for Skulker to put the glasses in. I saw Skulker grit his teeth so hard they cracked as he slowly went to put the glasses in his boss's hands, but he stopped when they were an inch from his thin fingers.

"…hey, Lord Plasmius?"

Vlad seemed impatient to get upstairs and get his third speech over with.

"WHAT! What is so important that you won't shut up and do what you're paid to do!"

I watched Skulker slowly shift his steel features into a hateful glare his boss would never see. He swiveled his neck to glance at me as he still held the glasses. He looked me straight in the eye, I returned the glare. He raised one steel fist and jerked his thumb to the side. I raised an eyebrow. He did it twice before I got the message. I slowly nodded in respect before going invisible and shooting off down the hallway before he handed Vlad the glasses he apparently needed to see.

I didn't stop running until I was three floors up and across the building, standing outside the double doors to the banquet hall. I looked around for any cameras before shifting into my human self, clad once again in a white leather jacket and pants. I adjusted my collar as I pushed through the door to find a silent, yet gigantic room full of reserved tables facing a stage with a podium. I crept unseen to my seat between Sherri and Kerri in their green/red dresses, everyone was looking at the stage so no one saw me sneak in.

After I sat down behind my abandoned meal I saw who was speaking. I let my jaw drop as I saw Vlad Masters Junior finishing up another speech, adjusting the blue glasses that just minutes ago had been in the hands of Skulker. He wasn't wearing them. In fact as he gave one last line about the supernatural he snatched them off his nose and looked into the audience. Even from here I could see that his vision was perfect, not even a bit nearsighted. As everyone rose to their feet in applause, I stayed seated, staring at the man who just took a bow as he sidestepped off the stage to the stairs at the side.

…how did he beat me up here? He must have gotten his 'glasses', and flew straight up through the floors back stage while I took the long way. As he waved to the crowd as he stepped down to the carpet, I saw some one waiting for him. One of the goons from the storage room, with his dinner jacket in shreds and his sunglasses missing, revealing two beady eyes. I saw him waddle up to his boss and say something.

I nearly smirked as Vlad looked around to make sure no one was looking, and started screaming at the lug in an animated manner, miming the way he was going to rip his head off and duct tape it onto the hood of his car. Wow, for an evil ghost lord he's great at body language.

I watched him and his thug run out the side doors, probably to the storage room to collect the others. I leaned in my seat to make sure they were gone before grabbing my water glass and draining it in one gulp, slumping back in my chair in relief. My sister sitting next to me had also seen the exchange after she saw me staring in that direction. She made a surprised noise as they stormed out and asked in a voice clearly belonging to Sherri.

"…who was that guy? And what did he do to Mr. Masters?"

I shrugged, loosening my collar.

"Probably his personal trainer. All the rich folks are beating the crap out of their coaches nowadays, helps keep young."

My sister gave me a confused look before shaking her head before turning back to my Mom and asking about the movie channels in their room. I chuckled at my own joke like an idiot as I secretly pondered how a man could be blind as a bat in ghost form, but have the eyes of a hawk as a mere mortal. And why the heck did Skulker save my ass back there?

One Hour Later

I finally got the last of it out of my system, taking a minute to cough and clear my lungs before standing up. I gripped the counter and just panted, getting my breath before splashing some water from the sink onto my face. I pulled off the thin dress shirt I was wearing, slipping on a tee shirt over my sweat-soaked back before pushing the bathroom door open and walking out into the third suite my parents had booked when they were invited to this convention.

I ran a hand through my hair, wringing the cold sweat out of my bangs as I slumped onto the rough-upholstered couch. I glanced around the little living room area to see the gigantic flat screen on the wall playing a movie dubbed in Spanish but with English subtitles, and sitting on the rug in front of it were both my sisters and Kirby sitting in a circle with Kerri dealing out cards in a trick shuffle. Kirby saw I was finally out of the bathroom and asked in Spanish if I always puked my guts out after a sip of cheap vodka. I was about to explain when Sherri, who knew some Spanish from high school that she never told my parents about, remarked.

"Alan has an allergy to alcohol. Something about his digestive system not being able to handle it."

Kirby raised her Sharpie-brand eyebrows at this, glancing at me to see if this was some sick family joke. I just nodded, confirming I was intolerant to alcohol. The thing is, I didn't have a drop that night. I told my sisters that I had a sip of vodka thinking it was water, and they didn't ask any questions about my vomiting. In reality, my nerves were a wreck from that little routine with Vlad.

Well, at least we had four bathrooms to choose from. My folks got one of the top five suites on the top floor, while they booked us two adjoining regular suites with a door between them. Us as in my sisters, who of course shared one of the two-bedroom rooms, and Kirby and I were stuck in the other. Kirby didn't actually attend the first night of the convention, and she says she's skipping the next three. But my parents are afraid she'd throw a party if we left her at home. They're just paranoid, Kirb' may be unpredictable but she's not a troublemaker.

Ever since she walked in on Vlad giving us his movie pitch and sent him packing, they think she's been trying to sabotage the Fenton Game Plan. I admit things turned out well on my side of the table, but the fact she forgot to get dressed was complete coincidence. Since there's a communication gap between her and my parents, I've been talking things over with them to try and make things easier on them. They agreed to turn off the closed circuit cameras in her room, but only if she'd appear in the movie to attract 'lesser audiences'. Also known as people who don't believe in ghosts.

Speaking of Kirby, I hadn't gotten the opportunity to inform her of what had happened in the under levels of the hotel. As much as I hate starting stories with 'I heard something in the basement', I need to bounce ideas off some one who didn't know more than I did. With Sam, she can tell me whatever I need to know but I have to jump through hoops to get to a subject. With Kirby, I can just talk to myself about what happened and not be considered insane.

I just let my body recover from the latter stages of trauma, lying motionlessly on the hotel couch until my sisters noticed the time and bid us goodnight. My sisters go to be early and wake up around noon, it's barely been a few weeks since they got out of high school and they have a worse sleeping pattern than I do. The moment they shut the divider door behind them I spilled my guts to Kirby. Not literally, thank God, I don't think I could handle any more stomach cleansing.

It only took me twenty minutes to give her a detailed account of what happened between my ditching the convention to go up to our room and seeing a ghost goon go downstairs, and when I ran into the bathroom to have a panic attack. She paid close attention, leaning forward from her perch on the armrest of the couch I was laying on, her dark green eyes brimming with thought. Thankfully she didn't make direct eye contact with me, she may be the cheeriest part of my daily life but those eyes of hers…

When I explained what made me violently ill, she showed signs of holding back a worried frown. Lately she's noticed how her mood shifts tend to intimidate me, and she tries to be less impulsive after an …encounter.

Things went from there. She asked questions, I answered them. An hour of eventless conversation later she went to make herself a drink and noticed we were out of ice. She was dressed in one of my worn cotton shirts that on her thinner frame went down to her knees, and from what else I could see a pair of slippers. I still had my white shoes, dress socks and slacks on under a fresh tee shirt so I volunteered to make a vending machine run.

One eventless walk down the endless maze of overly furnished hallways later and I was standing in front of the ice machine, removing the bucket from the grill as I brushed some extra ice into the drain. Right as I was about to turn and walk back I heard a now familiar metallic click, accompanied by an obvious gun barrel pressing against the back of my head. I slowly set the bucket back down before stating.

"…Wow, you weren't bullshitting about the whole hunter thing."

A cold chuckle from behind me, I could tell from the electronic tinge that it was indeed Skulker. I give him credit, he tracked me down in full human form without even having seen me transform. Congratulations, you are capable of seeing things that aren't plastered on the side of a barn!

"Turn around."

He retracted the gun built into his wrist slightly, allowing me to take a deep breath and slowly turn on my heel, tilting my neck up and glaring straight into his false eyes once again. He glared back, lowering his gun to his waist but not retracting the barrel. A ten second stand off passed before I heard a hidden speaker in his mouth kick to life.

"…those eyes…"

I kept glaring but my eyebrow twitched as he flashed his iron jaws at me, crossing his arms. I didn't take my eyes off him, but I knew his sheer size was blocking the entrance to the vending alcove. He'd just appeared behind me. I mustn't have noticed my breath because it was already visible from the ice machine. Genius. Just genius. He went on.

"It took me a while, but it all hit me when I saw you in that supply room."

I crossed my arms in a similar manner to his, more out of second nature than to intimidate him. A heavyweight boxer vs a Supernatural Terminator…didn't that one President around the turn of the century star in that movie? He played a robot skeleton with an Austrian accent?

"You hid your hand well, Ace. You really had everyone convinced. We just thought you'd come back stronger."

I scoffed at the word 'stronger', not showing any signs of fear. Actually, I felt pretty calm. Must be those cold pills I took to calm myself down, over the counter stuff these days is potent. He went on in the usual 'But before I kill you…' tone. I nearly let my eyes widen as he suddenly sighed and let his features loosen from an evil glare to a tired frown. He even lowered his gun as his shoulders slumped down like a football fan after a hard loss.

"Kid, I really hoped you were the original for a while…"

I didn't miss a beat.

"Why? So your new wall hanging wouldn't be an imitation knock-off?"

I expected him to kill me right there, but his gun stayed at his side and his face didn't even twitch. He went on in a somber tone.

"…I started working for that blue bitch because he'd give me the resources to hunt the original Halfa."

I shifted my weight to one foot, hearing him out. I hadn't gone ghost, strangely enough. Maybe I just knew deep down it wouldn't help me live any longer. The sad skull-man kept on with his somber tale, making me wonder if he was going to kill me with his gun or with this mind game.

"…he kept me working on his technology so much I was just an accomplice. Every time I got close to my prey, he took the glory…"

My eyes flicked to his hands, which were now basket ball sized fists.

"…and then he killed my last chance to be a hunter…"

I stared blankly at the ghost that had spent his afterlife hunting my grandfather as a trophy. And failed in the end because the man he became a tool of did it himself. In a method he probably saw as dishonorable. That, is the stupidest reason to let me live that I can think of…he added

"…well, at least he came back blinded…I can have all the fun I want when he breaks his glasses six times a day."

I nodded slightly, pretending to understand what the heck this guy was talking about. He went on in that menacing, but currently saddened.

"Kid. I don't want to know who you are, or what you are. I want nothing to do with you. I wanted the original Halfa. You ain't it."

I shrugged, he had a point.

"I'm not going to help him find you. I'm not even going to tell anyone that you're not Danny. You're a tough little bastard, but not the one I'm after."

I managed to keep a straight face as I wondered why in the green hell did my grandfather choose an alias nearly identical to his real name. I mean, a person with a speech impediment could get his last name wrong, people would go to correct him and suddenly realize they look similar. And they've never been seen at the same time. Wait…neither was Superman and…oh…my…God…Bruce Wayne was the Man of Steel the entire time! Oh yeah, the big metal guy is still saying stuff.

His steel features suddenly twisted back into his psychotic grin as he lowered his face to my eye level and growled into my face, blowing my bangs back slightly.

"…_and if you ever go near my spam filter again, I'm going to stuff you and mount you on my wall ALIVE!"_

With that he jabbed his stapler-sized finger onto a panel on his arm and the ferocious metal face disappeared into thin air, leaving me with my eyes narrowed at nothing but an empty alcove. The buzz of his cybernetic armor components had been replaced with the hum of the ice machine behind me.

I breathed in a few shallow breathes before noticing my breath wasn't coming out in blue puffs, finally grabbing the ice bucket from behind me and sprinting in my dress shoes back to the room, triple locking the door behind me and setting the ice on the table before locking myself in the bathroom and emptying the other half of my stomach. It only took a few heaves, I hadn't eaten much.

When I came out, this time dressed in a pair of cotton shorts that went down below my knees and my bare feet, I saw Kirby had used the ice to make herself a fruit drink, which she sipped from her lounging position on the couch. She saw how pale I was and cracked.

"What happened now? You walk in on Skulker having a one-night stand with the ice machine?"

I just stared blankly like a child actor in a horror movie. Kirby tilted her head when she saw the way my hands were shaking.

"…Alan?"

I just slowly nodded. She stared blankly for a few seconds before her face lit up, realizing I was referring to the thing about Skulker and the ice machine. Before I could explain what actually happened, she ran into the bathroom and locked the door. I heard the sound of a drink being emptied into the sink, followed by her gagging into another bathroom fixture. I winced at the sound before rapping my calloused knuckles on the sliding door.

"…Kirb'? I meant to say he just popped up, put a gun to my head and said he didn't want to kill me, then threatened to kill me if I told anyone and disappeared. Oh, and he knows who I am but his boss is such a jerk he forgot to tell him."

The gagging behind the door stopped.

"…so…he wasn't actually…with the ice machine?"

So that's why she spat out the ice and tried to induce vomiting…I shook my head and explained that she didn't need a tetanus shot as she went to unlock the door. As it started to slide open I added.

"Hey, did you know about Bruce Wayne being Superman and not tell me?"

One Day Later

Needless to say I skipped the next convention dinner. In fact I also got word of Mr. Masters leaving right after he did his encore speech, after he did a 'quality inspection' of the entire building and the major city around it and said it wasn't up to his standards. He forgot to tell the desk clerk that he may have left some traces of radioactive ectoplasm on the couch, but hey, the maids are probably used to that kind of thing in the honeymoon suites.

Speaking of romantic clichés, the hotel hot tub was worth the risk of leaving my room. Kirby said I needed to relax after my ordeal, that and she had to drag some one down with her to the pool so she could make wise cracks about the people who were lying to themselves about their appearance. I don't mean fat people. Kirby is extremely caring to everyone who isn't a shallow shell of a stereotype. She isn't technically related to my grandmother, but I swear they could be spiritually related or something.

In fact at the time this tale comes in she was leaning back to soak her hair as she nodded towards a girl who just walked in wearing a dark green one-piece that covered more than a nun's habit would. Kirby remarked.

"See the way she holds herself? She's either overly paranoid about how she looks, even though she's just fine, or her boyfriend is paranoid for her."

As she resurfaced, her black hair hanging straight down and curling against her neck in wet layers I took a second glance at the girl as she went to find a lounge chair in the huge indoor pool area.

"...don't go into business with your mom, Cuz'…"

She swung her neck to look at me, normally her hair would swing around like a ball and chain but it stayed put against her head. Before she could start going off in Spanish I commented.

"No offense intended. But the girl who is supposedly shy and paranoid about how she looks also has a natural shade of semi-blonde when she could have dyed it easily."

Kirby looked at the girl, who was reading a fashion magazine while spread out on her chair for all to see. I went on.

"She selected a lounge chair closest to the shallow end so she's in plain sight. And she only walked in slowly like that because she's in her bare feet and the floor was wet."

When I turned around to see Kirby's reaction, I was surprised to find her head tilted and her eyes narrowed at me. In a manner identical to the way a cat looks at some one new in its house. She moved stood up from the hot tub bench and moved closer, once again leaning in my face and looking into my eyes from an inch away like a magic eye thing in the newspaper. I cleared my throat after a few seconds, the prolonged eye contact once again getting to me. She backed off, falling back onto a seat closer to me as she sighed.

"…you're serious?"

…she did all that to see if I was _joking?_ I just nodded, jerking my head at the reclining natural blond to show it was obvious. Kirb' lowered her head, narrowing her eyes as she dealt one last trump.

"So…why is she wearing a suit like that?"

I glanced over, tilting my neck up to get an elevated view before turning back to my cousin and stating plainly.

"Plastic surgery scars take about a week to become invisible…"

Kirby's face slowly shifted into a grin, before she started trembling to avoid laughter. Eventually she couldn't take it and she dunked her head under to get out a quick guffaw before tilting her head back up, gasping for air and giggling. I meanwhile inched away from where she was sitting. That laugh…it was worse than both her eyes put together. Eventually she calmed down and gave me a white-toothed smile, winking her left eye as she raised the brow over the other.

"…so _that's_ what detectives do in their spare time…"

I closed my eyes and shrugged, leaning back on the edge of the tub as the jets kicked up another level.

I hate to say it but I spent the day like this. Just going around parts of the hotel with Kirby, having demented small-talk. I've been thinking about why we spend so much time together. I think it's the whole mixed race thing. I'm serious.

She's three quarters Cuban and one quarter mixed European. I'm three quarters assorted European, and the quarter Cuban. So together we make up one big piece of Euro Trash, a Cuban Goddess and we have that half of a ghost I have lying around in my genes somewhere left on the side. Okay, I suck at working out how this friendship works. Sue me for whiplash.

Right as we were about to guess how many sizes the natural blonde had gone up, a large family clad in bathing suits walked by and we switched to something rated G.

"I really think it went well, only took one session to get most of the songs down and they said they'd rip a few from that concert sound check."

I asked her about what they were going to name the album, but before I could give out some smartass answers in Spanish I noticed that the family that had just walked by was walking on a beeline for the hot tub. I suggested with my eyes that we should find another place to talk, when the mother of the group broke off and stepped up behind where Kirby was reclining in the small pool.

"Excuse me, but we were wondering if you were…"

She hesitated saying Kirby's name, in fact my cousin gave one of her legally trademarked smiles and said yes she was before the woman had to drag it out. A short conversation later and Kirby slid out of the hot tub to pose in a picture with the family while I just smiled and shook my head. Isn't fame supposed to corrupt and spoil girls like Kirby? Or at least get her hooked on prescription drugs and fad diets?

After they got a few shots I saw Kirby lean over and ask the bearded father something. A second later she turned with a smile towards the hot tub. She called over in a perfect New Jersey accent that she must have picked up from the gym.

"Hey, Fent'! We have a couple fans of yours over here!"

…I swear to God, right after this random pedestrian takes a picture of all seven of us, and I find out how much one of the prints is worth on the internet I am going to kill that girl with my bare hands. And then I'm going to go to the comic shop and try to get my superhero identities straight, better late then never.

Author's Notes

As you can see, Alan is a bit worried about his luck running out. He's had some good breaks so far, and he knows the first bad one is going to hurt. Why is Vlad vision impaired as a ghost? All part of the master plan, my little friends with little computer monitors and little DSL modems. I'm a bit worried I didn't get Skulker down right, I've made him out to be a depressed guy from all these years of serving Vlad but I fear I've missed some of his edge. Worst comes to worse I go back and re-do the parts he shows up in. Thanks for reading, please review and don't hold back any negative comments. I have the time to re-write the entire story in Spanish if I had to, editing a few minor things wouldn't kill me. Unless I end up like George Lucas…


	13. Chapter 13

DISCAIMER: See previous entries.

3 Days Later

About every few days the rest of the Fentons get called out to take care of a ghost. And every few days they drag themselves in with no evidence of having even seen, let alone victorious in the name of fame and science. This particular evening, they all clomped through the front door in their jump suits and backpacks looking hardly tired, but with less shameful slumping than usual.

I looked over from my place on the couch, where I was stretched out watching the ending credits of a movie I hadn't actually watched. Frost was curled up on the rug, looking rather confused with his large, wolf-like white head on his paws. I called out to my father, in his dark blue jumpsuit with padding in the torso to look like he had muscles under there.

"How'd it go?"

My dad pulled off his goggles and squinted over in my direction, taking a seat in an easy chair as he pulled off his high rubber combat boots. My sister and mom slunk off upstairs, less modest about changing clothes in public than the males in the family. And Kirby. He got his left boot off and exclaimed.

"We saw the thing plain as day, oddly enough."

I raised my eyebrows in a believable look of surprise.

"…without scanners? Where did this happen?"

As he pulled off the insulated jacket and shirt he explained in so little words what they found when they showed up in the Fenton-4x4. It's an SUV, who do they think they're kidding. There was a disturbance at an old theater built in the early 1900s, so a good old fashioned haunting was to be expected.

From what my sisters heard from the crowd, the company had gone through one of the last nights of their 'Phantom of the Opera' production. I'm not sure how the play itself went, but the real show didn't start until the actors came out for the group bow. Things started going haywire. Lights flickering, bulbs exploding, some furniture even shifted when the cast was in the middle of the bow. Then, things got weird.

My family didn't get the details on what happened that caused the cast and audience to get out of there. Some people were yelling that it just jumped out from a balcony, but they didn't say what. Whatever happened, it wasn't a planned special effect. At first the police were called, and that didn't last. So some one called the Fentons, we lived a half hour away so this is believable.

When my family busted through the retreating crowd and broke down the doors that were barricaded with broken chairs from the inside, they made their way through the absolutely demolished lobby and hallways to the main stage area. Now, my father wasn't very clear on what they saw when they rammed the fire escape open, but I think I should be able to fill in the details for him. Not that I was there, of course…

The three-story, nearly century old theater was in shambles. The old velvet seats had been ripped out of the floor and tossed aside by some incredible force. The balconies were hanging off their nails, the house lights most smashed or barely glowing from the cut power. The only light in the gigantic viewing area was cast from the stage, as if it were any other night and a production was under way with a paying audience. The stage was set up with props and furniture from one of the scenes in the middle of the play, it looked like a theater within a theater.

I'm serious. The stage was set up like an opera house, in a theater that probably acted as an opera house in the last hundred or so years. For some reason a gorgeous, elaborate chandelier lit with candle-shaped lights was suspended directly over the tiny stage, which was in the middle of the real stage. And on the tiny stage of the imaginary opera house stood two bizarre figures, one with his spindly hand wrapped around the other in a death grip while the young woman struggled to break free, which was impossible due to the grip the man had on the fabric of her white laced gown.

Now, what did my family do? They ran up with their ghost-guns and ammo packs through the cluttered isle between the seats, and stood there in front of the stage watching the events play out. Every once in a while my sisters would ask if they should do anything. Every time my father relied wait longer, and don't move so it doesn't see them. Except when he told me this he said they were blocked in a force field. Yeah, my dad wussed out and had the ghost fighting team just stand there while he kept his teeth from chattering. Is this _really _the grandson of Jack Fenton?

As we sat there in the living room he described the ghost itself with scientific terms, I shall describe it how I saw it. Standing on the tiny stage atop a stage was a man about five ten or so, of fair build and dressed so. He was clad in what I thought was an everyday outfit from the 1800s in Europe. I found out later he was wearing a costume from the play, just colored varied shades of green. His hair was swept back against his head above a fragile, exquisite face that was tinted slightly green due to his living status.

I've mentioned the poor girl he was holding by the neckline, dressed in the outfit she'd been wearing all evening in one of the main roles of the play. By the time the crowd had been scared off and my clan showed up, he'd been holding his prize hostage for close to ten minutes. She just shrunk away whimpering in utter fear while he captor gave a brilliant monologue in a rather perfectionist-sounding British accent. I didn't exactly hear he beginning, and my folks aren't the best people to ask for poetic details.

From what I picked up from my hiding place, he was ranting about how the woman truly belonged to either himself.  
Or the character he must have been portraying when he died, I'm not sure. The woman on the other hand just kept whimpering. He had a literal death grip on her, he wasn't a big guy but you have to give the whole dead thing some credit. My family just stood there in the house seats, listening to his speech and trying to decide how to take it down without hitting the hostage. This was their first actual ghost sighting, keep that in mind.

He concluded his speech with a piece on eternal union, clutching the girl tighter and waving his free hand as if to open a portal. By now I know what to look out for, it's a very specific hand motion they use. Personally, I think it looks like a sexually confused male with no dignity hailing a cab. Then again, I thought Bruce Wayne was Superman. Christ, how could I mix up Batman and Wally West?

By this point in my father's tale, things shift from a grade school lecture to a camp fire story. When the green fellow and his maiden were about to depart to the underworld, where I'm guessing he had a motel room booked, a dismounted spot light from the rafters above the stage flung itself vertically into the back of the thespian's head, missing his captive by inches. He recoiled in exaggerated pain, loosening his grip on the gal as he cradled his head. She instantly broke away and ran off the stage, panting in desperation before disappearing behind the curtain.

When the wiry ghost came to, he shook off his pain with a swing of his lace-covered neck as he looked up at the rafters with a look of pure fury, pulling an old fashioned dueling sword from a scabbard that had suddenly appeared on his belt. He swung the thin blade before him as he called out to the beams that this would not go unpunished. He continued yelling his challenge as he slowly turned on his heel, watching the rafters for any movement on the catwalk.

As he began calling intelligent curses at his unseen foe, he lowered his eyes to the stage and saw that he was not alone under the grand chandelier. His confident features dropped into pure enchantment before dropping further into that of terror. He lowered his blade and retreated back a few steps, dragging the blade on the wooden stage in a screech. My father seemed a bit shaky as he described the second specter. In fact he muttered that Kerri had fainted. I'm no sure why, I don't think it was that scary.

The deceased actor was retreating from a sight that would be terrifying even if it hadn't just appeared out of thin air in a visible area. Towering over the well-dressed ghost by a few inches was a man clad in a sweeping black cloak that was still shifting along its hem as if he'd floated down from the heavens. The cloak covered him from neck to toe, revealing not a bit of clothing underneath it. As if the menacing cloak weren't enough, the only visible feature, his face, was enough to break a few spirits.

He was wearing a mask. A mask of polished white plaster, secured onto his face with no visible band or strap. It was shaped to look like a section of a face, covering the side of he face from around the end of a lip and the area around one eye, leaving the side facing the stage furniture uncovered. But the man's contrasting darker skin against the ivory shield wasn't enough as it is.

His hair, pure silver or white depending on which light was shining, was hanging loosely over the top of the half-mask but hanging low enough to cover the uncovered eye. The only eye visible was surrounded by the material of the mask. And it shone with a brilliant green visible from the shadows of the mask's eye socket. His limbs were hidden in the folds of his cloak, but one could be thankful for that.

While my father detailed how he had to catch Kerri when she fell, he forgot to mention how the uncloaked ghost looked at the other. His features once again dramatically shifted from fearful to vengeful. He raised his blade before him, pointing it at the menace as a defensive manner. My father said he caught a fragment as the actor yelled out that 'Such a guise shan't derail my mission!'. Is the Phantom of the Opera even _supposed_ to sound like poor Shakespeare? I'm starting to think this guy wasn't the best actor.

As my mother and sisters filed down the stairs and shuffled off to the kitchen, my father described the brief confrontation between the two figures on stage. He basically said one won, the other didn't. That no good enough? Fine, I'll toss in my twenty five cents.

My father explained that the green-clad fellow with the sword yelled out a curse and charged the cloaked one with his blade held high. The man in the mask and cloak just stood there, not moving. When his attacker came close and swiped the blade at the masked head, my father said it he just disappeared into thin air, all of a sudden he was standing on the other side of the stage. He hadn't moved, to the untrained eye.

While this impressed the ghost fighters in the audience, the ghost with the stage sword wasn't as pleased. He spun on his high-laced heel and charged in the other direction, swinging the blade behind him and readying himself to impale the statue-esque figure before him. The phantom stayed put, only moving as the man crossed the center of the stage, when my mother said that she saw he bottom of his cloak move. I won't go into detail on the way the chandelier hanging over the stage crashed without warning down upon the sword-welding gentlemen of the grave.

James Fenton shrugged his now bare shoulders as he said when the dust cleared, there was no sign of either ghost. They checked out the entire stage and found out that the chandelier was rigged to fall on that spot when a false board was pressed right about where the masked figure had been standing.

My mother assumed they'd witnessed a repeated event that had gone on for decades, repeating a murder or the like. Why it only happened this one time they're not sure. They didn't think to ask anyone if they knew anything about the haunting, they didn't even ask the cast if all the costumes were accounted for. They just posed for some pictures, made a speech about how they defeated the ghost and drove off.

My father leaned back into the couch, grabbing the remote and taking over the channel flipping as I stared at him, restraining my eyebrow.

"…you…told the press you did something?"

He shrugged, scratching his stomach.

"Hey, we showed up didn't we?"

I just shook my head to myself, going to get up when I saw the front door creak open behind where my father was sitting, and watching a wiry figure clad in slacks and a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up creep in silently. I glanced down to make sure my father hadn't noticed before looking closely at the face of the hooded figure, my eyes widening as I got a closer look. I nervously glanced at where my father reclined, seeing he hadn't heard her come in.

I pretended to watch the football game on the screen as the figure gently stepped toward the stairs, on the tiptoes of her feet despite the sandals she wore. My nervousness nearly subsided when she reached the stairs, but the moment her foot touched the bottom step the old boards creaked to life. My father heard this and slowly twisted his neck to see who was going upstairs.

…by the time he turned his head, I had literally flipped over the couch and rolled over the carpeting, now standing right next to the hooded figure with my arm extended toward her face, which was facing away from where my shirtless father sat. He didn't acknowledge the fact I had suddenly shifted ten feet, squinting over and asking.

"…Kirinia? Why are you wearing your shirt like that?"

Slowly, my cousin spun on one heel to face my father and flash a smile from under the hood of her sweatshirt. My father raised his eyebrows and asked.

"…Alan, why are you touching her face like that?"

I was standing next to her, crouched on one knee and reaching up to touch the side of her cheek with one fingertip. Well, when I first thought of this two seconds ago I didn't think to make an excuse. I stared blankly for a moment, then moved my thumb against my confused cousin's cheek as if wiping a smudge.

"Um…she had a bug splatter on her face…?"

My father gave me a look that calmly stated he didn't believe a letter of that, but he honestly didn't want to know why I'd flipped across the room just to ouch my cousin's face while she muttered something about the wind outside. As soon as his blue eyes drifted back to the football game both my partner in crime fighting and myself had sprinted up two flights of steps and locked the door to Kirby's room behind us. I slumped against it, panting as Kirby caught her breath against her small fridge next to her door.

…and as she let out shallow breaths as if warming up for a song, I couldn't help but stare as I once again noticed she was wearing a half-face plaster mask that just hours ago, I'd stolen from a dressing room in the old opera house. I'd lunged across the room so I could touch it and make it invisible so my father wouldn't recognize it. As soon as I could talk again I demanded.

"…why, the hell are you wearing that mask?"

She slowly looked over and nervously smiled under the mask that honestly looked better on the Phantom of the Opera than it did on the both of us combined.

"Eh…after I parked the bike I tried it on for fun…"

I lowered my brow, telling her to go on. She faked a laugh.

"…and…it got stuck?"

The mask had an adhesive on the sides so you didn't a chin strap. Honestly, I only got the thing off because it fell right off when I went mirage while trying to beat my family to the parking lot. I smacked myself with my palm at Kirby's predicament. I then gritted my teeth and asked.

"…well…how about when I came outside looking for where you parked the bike, and it was _gone_?"

She pushed off the wall to walk towards her bathroom, probably to pry the mask off under the faucet.

"Your folks would have seen it and knew we were there. I had to get it out of the parking lot."

I let my hand slide off my face, walking over to a chair and slumping into it.

"I had to _fly_ home, Kirb'."

I heard the sound of running water from her bathroom, and soon enough she walked holding the mask in her left hand and wiping her face with a towel with her right.

"_Apesadumbrado, Alano…_"

She set the mask down on her coffee table as she sat down on her cluttered couch, wiping her face off before looking at me with not so much a smile as an inquiry to the last few hours. I instinctively looked away as those emerald eyes of hers did their worst.

"…what now? You want my ATM Pin?"

I looked over the various art nailed to her wall as she asked.

"…it's BOSCOW. Actually, I want to know since when are you into Broadway?"

I spun in my seat, looking at her in disbelief as she tilted her head at me, waiting for an answer with a slight smirk. I shook my head to explain my confusion. Se explained.

"…come on…the costume?"

I shrugged, glancing up at the sloping ceiling.

"I saw my folks drive up when I was sneaking in. I found that mask and the cloak back stage, figured it would make a good disguise. Let's face it, my secret identity isn't very secretive. "

She nodded, but answered with another question.

"…and you ended up facing Christine's lover dressed as the Phantom?"

"Eh…what?"

Her smile slowly fell as she realized I had never even read about, let alone seen the Broadway play I'd just reenacted. She leaned forward, propping her slender chin against her knees.

"Alan…how about the chandelier?"

My eyebrow jumped up as she asked about how I triggered the rigged chandelier. Honestly I just figured it'd stun him, but for some reason he disappeared after it hit him.

"Yeah, took some good timing."

She suddenly shook her head.

"No, no! I mean that's just what happens in…"

She nearly finished her statement, but broke it off with a sigh. She closed her eyes and fell back onto her couch full length.

"Never mind…"

She continued lying on her couch silently. I figured she was either asleep, or all those shooting star sightings had finally kicked in and she was in a coma where she couldn't speak or steal my clothes. And they say wishes never come true.

I slowly stood up and crept toward the door. I snuck down the hall to my room, locking and barricading the door behind me until dawn. The next day when I went looking for my mail I saw Kirby had hung the mask on her bedroom wall. The one place my parents would never venture, what a hiding place. And I am never going to live this down if she tells everyone at the gym that Alan 'The Phantom' Fenton ended up dressed like…oh, forget it, the joke is dead.

Later That Day

"Twelve! Two! Four!"

I nodded slightly and in the blink of an eye fired three blasts in a row in the corresponding punching bags hanging in a circle around me. As the three bags swung back against their bubble wrap lining I yelled up towards the loft.

"Don't fall into a pattern! Ghost gangs don't attack going clockwise, trust me. Most of them have digital watches."

Kirby's lighthearted laughter echoed off the barn walls as I waited for her to call out the next chain from her perch in her 'studio'. We'd been at this for twenty minutes. I stand in my little ring of targets, she calls out which ones to blast, repeat, repeat, inhale, repeat, exhale, repeat, and consult a doctor if you're having problems repeating.

Before she could give me more targets I heard her loudly strum a guitar bridge, and a second later the huge barn doors were pushed open while I was in full ghost form. I spun around to see Kerri leaning against the old door frame and looking right at me. I calmly inquired.

"...what?"

I tossed my gloved hands up in the air to show my point. I was suddenly clad in a pair of acid washed cutoffs and a pair of my old black bag gloves. And if anyone asks, I'd been dressed like that the _whole time, _got it? My sister raised her left eyebrow in the same way I always did, looking disapprovingly at my sweat-soaked form. My sisters wear six piece jumpsuits to go jogging on their matching elliptical machines. I only wore shorts while I was working out because Kirby's was always around and she's very immature about that kind of thing. My sister asked.

"Mom wants to know if either of you know anything about where all our leftovers are disappearing to."

I slowly urn and look up at the loft. Kirby is crouched over the edge, looking down at us and shaking her head. My sister notes Kirby's denial and looks at me smugly. I cross my arms, tucking my gloves to my sides and asking if she's serious. She shrugs, swinging her brown braid against her back.

"Hey, you're the one Dad always blames when he falls off the diet wagon."

I rolled my eyes, slipping off my left glove against my thigh.

"More like jumps off into a ditch and floats down the river."

My vertically challenged sister crossed her arms and snickered like the cheerleader she and her twin had become in their three years of high school.

"Yeah, every time mom goes on a fad diet it takes a year off his life. Or at least he acts like it."

Kirby called down from her perch.

"If they just followed my diet plan they'd be doing fine!"

I sighed, calling back up to her.

"Your diet plan consists of coffee, jelly beans and anything deep fried. Your exercise plan? Skip your hyperactivity medication."

Our cousin rolled her eyes, tossing her hair over one shoulder with a flick of her head as she hopped down onto the ladder, chattering off a retort in Spanish. My eyes slowly widened.

"…you take that mouth inside with you when you go to church?"

Kerri, who didn't know a word of Spanish, looked between the two of us with a confused tilt to her rounded face.

"…what'd she say?"

I sighed, reaching over and patting my sister on the head.

"Hopefully you'll never know, little one…"

She glared as Kirby hopped off the ladder onto her feet and pranced over. I shucked off my other glove and grabbed a shirt from a hook on the wall, nodding at my cousin to indicate we were done for now. She responded with a wink as she asked my sister what time it was. As the three of us started walking toward the main door she checked her watch and said it was around two.

I sighed, and when Kerri was out of the barn I spun around, summoning a small flame before flinging it square into the corresponding bag, making it wing back from the impact. Kirby just chuckled as we continued walking out.

"You can do that stuff without shifting?"

I shrugged, and as we neared my sister's ears again I replied in a coded answer.

"Yeah. But the jacket is just really comfortable."

Six Hours Later

"…next time I'll defrock ya' and sell your feathers to unsatisfied married couples!"

I stood on the roof of an all terrain vehicle parked outside the club, shaking my experienced fist at a bunch of neon green vultures rapidly flapping off into the night sky. I eventually let my arms fall to my hips, making sure I didn't need to shoot them down like ducks again before hopping off the car and walking into an alley behind the live music club that was just attacked by phez-wearing poultry.

I went human, let myself in the back entrance and when I came out of the hallway leading to the bathrooms I found everyone was dancing or lining up at the bar again, as if the ghostly attack twenty minutes earlier was a thing of the past. I looked over the heads of the mostly shorter club patrons, spotting my cousin at one of the side tables guarding a drink. I sidled through the crowd over to the table, plopping down at the other seat.

"Didn't take long, they were past their expiration date."

I looked out at the dance floor, expecting to hear a Spanish wise crack or something. I didn't hear anything from across the table, so I got curious. I looked over and nearly did a double take. Kirby was hunched forward on her chair-stool, with her chin propped up on both hands as she looked at me in a way that honestly scared me. Fogged over eyes, limp smile, eyelids heavy in admiration. Like a teenage girl looking at British Dream-Boat of the Month.

Yes, it scared me.

"…eh…what were you drinking again?"

I glanced at her empty glass, wondering how much alcohol it would take to induce this kind of trance. When I glanced back at the way she was longingly staring at me I got a closer look at her eyes. Still green, but a completely different shade. My face bent into a scowl automatically as she continued doting at me like a magazine cover. I stood up, reaching over and grabbing her by the shoulder as I stormed off towards the exit with my love-struck cousin in tow at arm's length.

No one in the line to get in noticed us as I dragged the seemingly drunk girl out to another alley, glancing around before standing her in front of me out of view from the road. I raised my right hand, focusing on a mental image as my hand disappeared but the rest of me stayed. I lunged it forward, straight into Kirby's seemingly uncaring torso. Now, being non-solid, it's not as disgusting as it seems. Although knowing my cousin has a extra rib isn't exactly pleasant knowledge.

As I grunted and reared my hand back from her rib cage like a zombie ninja ripping out a spinal cord, my hand emerged holding up what looked like a very surprised, green-skinned teenage girl dressed in fishnets, high heels and a poorly fitted blouse. I glared as I held the green girl by the hair higher so her feet didn't brush the ground, turning her around and looking into her red eyes.

"Kitten…this is _really_ getting old…"

My ghostly admirer just nervously laughed in a high pitched voice as I dropped her onto her heeled shoes, where she stood next to my dazed cousin in the forgotten alley. She smiled at me through too much lipstick and went to explain, I raised my now visible hand to stop her.

"…No. Just, no! This is the _fifth_ time! The first time, it scared the hell out of me! The second and third, I admit I was a bit flattered…but by the fourth you had me worried that Johnny and Shadow are going to jump me when I least expect it!"

She winced at the name of her long-time boyfriend and his sidekick, Kirby began to flutter her eyelids as she started becoming aware of where she was. I kept tearing into the badly dressed ghost gal.

"You're too old to get with my _grandfather!_ If you want to get back at your man for something that happened sixty years ago, cheat on him with some one else! Or at least overshadow a girl I'm _not_ _related to!"_

Right as she was about to point one of her four-inch nails at me and give me something to complain about, I was already shoving her toward the entrance of the alley, muttering things under my breath. Right before I pushed her back onto the sidewalk I yelled one more tip.

"…and for God's Sake get some new clothes! You look like Julia Roberts before Richard Gere came along!"

She yelped as I shoved her out of the alley and hopefully out of my life. I spun on one leg back around and walked over to where Kirby was holding her head with mouth hands, her eyes tightly shut in an obvious headache.

"…ugh…why do I taste cheap booze on my teeth?"

I sighed, taking her arm and guiding her towards the neon-lit street.

"Kitten…'nuff said."

Kirby loudly cursed as she kept holding her pained head.

"_Otra vez!_ That's the fifth time! Doesn't that skank have anyone else to possess?"

I just shrugged as I we reached the curb, I started waving at traffic to try and find a cab.

"At least this time she didn't have time to give me the true love speech."

She made a noise like a growl deep in her throat, half-opening her eyes and glaring at thin air.

"Every time she hijacks my bod' it's like I spent a night drinking…Geez, when you borrowed me before the concert it was like waking up from a nice nap."

My eyes shot to both sides, looking for any witnesses before jabbing my elbow right into her kidneys, she bent over in sudden pain.

"…I thought we both agreed that _never_ happened…"

She nodded painfully as a cab driver saw us and pulled over. I helped my stumbling comrade into the back seat as I gave the fellow the address of the train station. The cab ride and train run went in blessed silence, but eventually when we were walking on the dirt road to the ranch we started talking again. Once again, about that ghost girl who had apparently taken a liking to me because at first she thought I was my grandfather.

Later, she told me that I look way better in a jacket than her ex-boyfriend ever did. That is just a flat out lie. The guy looks way better in that fighter pilot trench than my little off-the-rack biker deal. I asked my sisters about guys and leather jackets, trust me. They were A-Squad cheerleaders. They know a few things about shallow vanities. I'm their older brother, and according to them those perverted punks that I routinely beat the snot out of looked good in leather.

"So, do you remember me stepping out to take care of the vultures who never got their social security checks?"

She nodded, going through the movements of a _samba_ as I shuffled down the dirt stretch like an out of work farmhand.

"Yeah. Then it's all black, and I was standing in the alley while you threw her out by the seat of her flapper skirt."

I nodded, just making sure the memory lapse wasn't as major as the first time Kirb' got shadowed. She didn't remember a single thing from the day before, it all came back to her eventually but it was annoying as heck when she kept trying to start the exact same conversations about guitars being better than the male gender.

"Hopefully she got the point this time. The last time I sent her off with some pamphlets on couples counseling, I really think it'd smooth things out."

Kirby ended her dance routine, clicking her tongue in the near darkness of the moonless night.

"I dunno'…he's just a free spirited rebel, she's more the controlling type. I'm not sure how they lasted this long."

I shrugged.

"Well, if they hadn't been arguing about his supposed cheating, they wouldn't have ran off the road, and they would have stayed alive long enough to end the relationship."

My cousin slowed her long-legged pace. I saw her head tilt toward one slender shoulder in the dark.

"…she told you all that, while she was in _my_ body? What else did she do?"

I assured her that Kitten never got _that_ fresh with me in her body. We continued our supernatural small talk until we split ways in the third floor hallway, going off to our respective rooms. She probably changed into one of my old shirts and went to bed. I just spent the night watching boxing matches on the cable recorder channels.

Sam told me that this sleep thing never happened to Danny. Well, unless that portal radiation also gave me insomnia and the ability to stay awake for weeks on end, this is just another obstacle of my daily living. Along with a ghost lord hunting me down like a fugitive. And two parents who don't know me but insist that they do. And my never getting credited for the ghost attacks I've ended and the major crimes raids and homocides I've helped stop. And a long-time trainer to mourn and just plain get over the death of. And the fact Frost doesn't sleep on my bed anymore. Oh, did I mention that one Cuban girl who moved into that room down the hall?

The Next Day

"…and flick the jab!"

Kirby nodded at me from behind her headgear, going back up to the heavy bag and practicing the wrist technique I'd just demonstrated. I crossed my arms, watching her form for a few minutes before some one tapped me on the back. I looked over to see Wasp, the mostly friendly female pro with the black/yellow headgear. She was holding a tiny slip of paper in one of her gloves hands. She dropped the scrap in front of me, I caught it before it fluttered to the floor. She explained through her custom mouth guard.

"My mom told me to get that to you."

I nodded in thanks, reading the short note quickly and slowly looking up as Wasp walked off. I yelled for her to come abck, and she did so rather reluctantly?

"What now, Fent'?"

She glared at me with her dark features flaring. I politely asked.

"Wasp…what was your last name again?"

She rolled her eyes, walking off again.

"Gray. My name is Wilma Amber Gray, why do you think I go by an alias?"

I just nodded to myself again, turning back to where Kirby was leaning against the bag waiting for an explanation. I just shrugged, tucking the note into my pocket.

"…get this, Wasp is Tucker and Val's daughter."

I didn't mention how I've been here for nearly a decade. And the fact I must be a complete moron. Kirby just asked in honest confusion.

"…how did Tucker pull _that _off?"

I just shook my head. I did not know.

Author's Notes

Poor guy...first he can't find a light switch. Then he can't get his superheroes right. And now he hasn't noticed a striking similaity between his gym buddy and a the ghost hunter who gave him da' bike. Now, I've been wanting to do a tribute to a certain Broadway play ever since my girlfriend dragged me to it years ago. Do note Alan has never even seen the movie, so it makes it even more ironic. Why is Kitten still having problems with Johnny? Don't ask me, I'm not Doctor Phil. Read and review, and now that we have hit counters I can make threats like if I don't get so many hits I'll kill off a character. Or I'll just spend ten minutes a day watching my hits go up, either way.


	14. Chapter 14

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries. If you haven't heard about a character in here, fifty percent chance I created him or her.

(Pre-Note: Lessien did it again. Check her art page, she did a very good digital sketch of Alan in the opera outfit from last chapter. I don't care how she feels about it or how you guys like it, I personally printed it out and taped on the wall over my desk. Maybe I should frame it like a normal person would.)

I closed one eye and peered down the tapered barrel as the far-off sounds of two girls playing with a half-grown puppy crackled from the stairway. I was bent over a steel table, examining what appeared to be a handheld ecto-gun. It looked just like an ultra-modern handgun except for a leaner profile where an ammo cartridge usually resides. It could have passed as a normal gun if not the fact it was chromed silver with digital green highlights around the trigger and muzzle. Why Val had invited me into her renovated warehouse-lab to look at this thing, I wasn't sure.

"It has the same color scheme as Skulker's tech. But it looks a bit simple for a guy like him. He's got that whole short-man complex."

Mrs. Gray, dressed in black slacks and a crimson sweater, watched me put the gun down from the other side of the table. She was dressed casually when Wasp gave us a ride over her, no business airs here. She just waved us in, told Kirby and 'Wilma' that her new dog was in the living room and let them loose while she showed me this little Ghost-Glock she'd found in her travels.

"It's a different breed from what your family has been using."

She reached over and flipped the gun into her hand by the trigger guard, walking over to the long side of the barely-filled storage building. I followed her over to a painted square in front of a wall with a target spray-painted on the wall a good distance away. I crossed my arms as she raised the gun in a practiced firing stance and pulled the trig. I watched as a tiny green speck shot from the gun, silently whizzing into the center of the crooked target and exploding into a car-sized green light show without any sound what so ever. I whistled, breaking the silence as the ecto-energy faded.

"Looks better than a fishing pole. Where'd you find that?"

She twirled the pistol by one long-nailed finger before tucking it in a pocket and turning to me.

"It belonged to a guy I knew from high school. Keith Krenall. Bit of a loner, always the creepy kid drawing pentagrams on his arms. Vlad sent him a few toys in the mail and said in an email that if Keith killed Inviso-Bill he'd be famous."

I widened my eyes at the words 'kid' and 'kill' in the same sentence. I tilted my head and looked at the molded handle protruding from her pocket.

"…why'd he give you that thing?"

She looked away from me and without a word of explanation started walking at a slow pace towards the stairs leading to her house upstairs.

"…I found it under his bed when his parents invited me to his funeral. Along with Vlad's note and a few other weapons."

I stood there next to the firing range as she kept walking towards the lighted steps. After a few seconds I broke into a jog to catch up.

"Whoa…wait, how did he…?"

She didn't look at me, still staring straight ahead as she just stepped along.

"He tried to take down Danny with some…extreme methods. Danny didn't kill him, he just got out before the bomb went off. He tried to get Keith out too, but the kid just kept trying to take Danny out. The police said it was a gas leak and electrical spark. But how often does an abandoned building go nova in a green fireball?"

I just stared at the profile of her face. She didn't make eye contact as she described the way some desperate soul took his life trying to destroy my grandfather in the name of popularity. Right before we entered the stairway I asked.

"…you brought me over here to show off a gun and tell me about some crazy punk who…"

Before I could cross the threshold of the stairs her red-clothed arm shot out in front of me, blocking my way. I turned to see for the first time she was facing me and looking me right in the eye. I locked eyes with her for the first time without that damn helmet visor in the way. I saw her dark green orbs weren't narrowed at me, but just trying to get their point across. I relaxed my shoulders slightly before she began.

"…Kid, I brought you here because there's a lot you don't know about this. I'm not the only ghost hunter Vlad lent his resources to. I found out after Keith died that Vlad had been sending his technology to every kid in Amity Park who he could take advantage of. The day after I found that stuff under Keith's bed I told Vlad that he could shove it."

…actually, 'shove it' is just a nicer term I'm writing in her to replace what the ghost-tracker _really_ said. She had a mouth on her, trust me.

"Krennal wasn't the only kid Vlad sacrificed just to get at Danny. I know at least four other people from my class who ended up getting hurt or worse after they decided to go ghost-hunting with the stuff Masters sent them. I was the first. I'm also the only one who got out while I still could."

I managed to keep my jaw from sliding down to my waist as she kept on.

"I admit I got hooked. I started making my own stuff and got pretty well known as a ghost hunter. But lately, I've been trying to phase into more foundation work and research. I'm not getting any younger, and neither is Wilma."

…okay, I admit I nearly busted out laughing there, but for the most part she had me in a trance. Ha-ha, 'Wilma'…man, I can just imagine Wasp with a bone through her hair in a ragged apron.

"When I found out you weren't another Halfa-poser I started thinking."

She removed her arm from in front of me and started up the steps, I followed her like a lobotomized sheep on a leash.

"…you seem to have things under control. You're a bit rough-cut but you get the job done."

I muttered.

"…thanks?"

She waved off my microscopic comment as she kept climbing the spiral steps.

"I'm taking a break. I'm giving up this whole ghost thing to spend some time with my daughter and try to get my husband to stop going on business trip after business trip."

I shrugged, it'd be nice to actually see what Tucker looks like nowadays. She swung her eyes back in front of her as we neared the red oak door to her apartment.

"I brought you here to warn you that there are more than Vlad and other ghosts looking for you. There are people who would sooner kill you than even acknowledge your existence. Some of them have the ability to do so."

I nodded, regaining the use of my tongue as we stopped outside her door.

"If they're anything like my folks I'll be fine. Worse comes to worse, I take a good punch."

I felt my fingers twitch slightly as she turned and locked those eyes on me again, this time in a more probing manner. She gave me a curious look and asked in a less official tone.

"…you're not the cocky type, are you?"

I looked down at my shoes and shook my head. I'm not sure, but I think I saw her smile out of the corner of my vision.

"…lose the inferiority complex, Hun'. You're no Danny Phantom, but I've seen you work. You have some great moves. According to my own eyes and my daughter, at least. Then again you probably look in the mirror and expect it to shatter."

Right as I was about to look up at her and ask what that was supposed to mean, she opened the door to her luxurious loft and burst out laughing as she saw Kirby and Wasp (…Wilma…HA!) fighting each other off for a chance to pet Val's adorable Sheltie puppy. I did the same, managing to hide any trace of my confusion, fear or the fact I was actually laughing at Wasp's real name because I didn't have the chance to before.

An hour later and Kirby and I both jumped out over the sides of Val's (…red…of course) convertible. The back seat was really sunk back, and it only had two doors. Val and Wasp were on their way to a shopping binge and the Fenton Ranch as on the way, so she was nice enough to drop us off. In fact as we started down the dirt path Val yelled one last time for me to pay attention. I turned just in time to catch a black nylon backpack Wasp had thrown at me. I let it slip to one wrist and stared at it before the mother and daughter waved and left literally in a dust cloud. Why do big shots always try to burn rubber on a dirt road? Why?

Kirby fought off her laughter and walked up to where I was standing in the middle of the road, covered in tan dust and watching the convertible tear off into the horizon. I was debating whether to fly after them and steal their hubcaps at the next red light. Screw '…comes great responsibility.', I have 'super-powers' or something similar and those were my good jeans! And this dirt doesn't bleach easy! Kirby noticed I was holding the backpack and asked in Spanish what it was. I just spat out some dust and tossed it to her, she caught it awkwardly as I started shuffling down our driveway.

"Who cares. I don't need any care packages, she probably gave me a gun because she's an NRA poster girl."

I heard Kirby's heeled feet pick up behind me.

"…I've seen you shoot cans off the roof a speeding car at my dad's police picnic…"

I rolled my eyes, noticing the dust hanging off my eyebrows.

"Kirb', there's a difference between the 2nd Amendment and bringing a gun to a fair fight."

I heard her pull the zipper of the pack as we approached the lawn. I heard her mutter something in Spanish, she did this whenever she read anything. Cereal boxes, song lyrics, romance novels, always moving her lips and chattering in her semi-native tongue. Val must have left a note in the pack explaining how to attach the laser-sights. I expected Kirby to ask if she could shoot the thing at the side of the barn. I did not expect to hear explosive laughter right as we climbed up onto the porch.

I turned my head and looked at her, still a bit ticked from my dust treatment. She was hunched over onto the porch floorboards, holding the backpack in one hand and a piece of yellow paper in the other. Tears of laughter were pouring down her tall nose. I just let my eyebrow do its thing. After she caught her breath she held up the post-it for me to see. Written in red sharpie, and I quote.

'Kirby-

If you're reading this, your cousin is extremely predictable.

Love, Valerie'

I just stared blankly at the little scrap of a note as Kirby fell onto her side in laughter. Okay, Val had a good sense of humor and good foresight. Why does Kirby find this so funny? Was Wasp teaching her how to mix vodka shots while I was learning about ghost hunters? Or should I say, Wilma…HA! Now that, is worth laughing about.

1 Hour Later

I walked out of my bathroom in a fresh set of clothes and with my hair soaked into layers, finding my cousin had finally left me alone. Not a trace of her except for that backpack and its contents spread out on my bedspread, from my bathroom doorway I couldn't see any ecto-zookas or ghostly switchblades. It just looked like…a bunch of stuff in a backpack.

As I pulled on my twenty second pair of cutoffs and another shirt I glanced over at the contents of the bag. Some one must have found them in the hall and dumped the whole thing on my bed. I walked up as I dried my hair on a towel from the hamper, looking at the pile of hardcover books that were spilling out the cheap backpack. I grabbed the one on the top and red the title.

"…Science and the Afterlife…V.W.Gray."

I picked up the next, this one was thicker and came with a jacket.

"The Monsters are due in Amity Park…V.W Gray and T.S. Foley."

…wow…he really _did_ change his last name to 'Smooth'…

A few hours later I was curled up in a bean bag chair in the loft, reading the first in the book series Val had apparently written about her trade. I was up to the chapter about why Amity Park was supposedly a supernatural hotspot, I hard some one slip into the barn on their tiptoes. I recognized the footsteps and continued reading. I heard the rungs of the ladder creak, but I didn't see anyone's head pop up. I turned the page, right as I was about to finish a sentence I heard it.

"_Primo!_ _¡Compruebe esto hacia fuera!"_

I just snapped the book shut and sighed. Every time I find some peace in my life, God throws this Latin chick in to screw everything up. Those Bubonic Plague victims got lucky.

"…what now, did you find another four leaf clover? Because if you just tore the third leaf again and try to pass it off as one I'm going to beat your…"

While I stated my threat I crawled over to the edge of the loft and looked down the ladder. I stared for a few moments before telling her forcibly.

"…take…it off…and go hide it somewhere my sisters won't see it. Or better yet, burn it."

"…you've been such a downer all week, Cuz'…"

Kirb' sighed and clambered back down the ladder. I watched her slump out of the barn with her head hanging like a sad puppy. I just reminded myself that cuteness doesn't work on me. I'm not human. I went back to my required reading, and got a good three pages in before I heard two shrill screams in the distance. I closed my eyes and just shook my head. I _told_ her not to let the twins see it…

The Next Day

I didn't take Kirby with me to the gym for a good reason. I had to make a long-distance pit-stop after my workout to the shopping center of a major airport. No, I didn't plan on starting a tacky souvenir collection like my Aunt Janet. You see, tucked off to the side was a converted storefront that said 'Teen Counseling'. Yeah, a psychologist set up office in the airport. It's cheap and has a lot of walk-in business. I first found out about it from a guy at the gym who's been slumping around the gym sighing about how he can't face commitment.

So, a week ago I started stopping by every couple of days for a half hour session at a time. The first time I came in the good doctor asked about my lifestyle as she piled on make-up and did her hair while I described having problems with my mother. I have _never_ had problems with my mom. But Eric Phantoon, the guy I told her I was, apparently did. I just laid on the couch making up teenage issues and about how my life is so tough. I even told her I was still in high school, I just got held back a few times.

The next session, she sat there and explained six different reasons why I was a failure at life. Some of which included poor body image, which she couldn't blame me for. I was also learning disabled and not getting any better. And to top it all off she told my entire personality was a cover-up for my true sexuality. All while fluffing her dyed-red hair and putting on more face cream, and _I_ have a self image problem? And Kirby wondered why I've been out of it all week…

The third session went like this. I park my bike in the airport garage, then wander in through the maze of baggage checks and moving walkways. Eventually I come up to the window-less storefront advertising emotional counseling, and notice it's right next to a boarding gate full of people hugging and saying goodbye to their loves ones before a trip. Isn't that a coincidence. I took a seat in her waiting room next to a bunch of sad-looking teenagers and their disappointed parents, waiting for her to step out call my fake name.

The door to her well-furnished office opened and I stared as a set of triplets walked out, all crying and whimpering as they walked out the door into the busy airport. Maybe they could catch a flight to France while they're out there, they're sensitive enough to blend in there.

"Eric Phantoon? Self-absorbed, unintelligent, in the closet? You have the next appointment."

I looked around to see none of her other patients had reacted to her listing my fictional ailments. She just said that to embarrass me, just like she did with every other vulnerable teen. I assumed my derelict posturing and stood up, shuffling into her shag-carpeted office like a convict going to the chair.

I slumped down onto the lush couch and looked down at my lap as the doctor closed the door and walked along the length of a full-wall bookshelf, tapping an Oriental vase before taking a seat in an overstuff chair and taking out a notebook. She patted her not natural-looking red hair and took a sick of lipstick out of her blazer pocket as she started.

"Now, we were on your parents not wanting you…"

I forcefully sighed, pretending to agree with her. She went on about my being held back in high school, asking where I attended.

"Amity Park."

I glanced up briefly to see her stop scratching her pen, just staring into space for a moment before she regained her composure.

"…I know the school…now, back to your wasted life…"

I suddenly cut her off, her eyes cut into me as her usually meek patient showed an unusual amount of dominance.

"Dr. Spectra, sorry to bring this up but about my billing…"

Her painted lips rose into a smile. She loved money more than she loved helping people, obviously. She hopped out of the chair and bustled over to her single fling cabinet, ruffling through files for my name

"Yes, what about it? Would you like more sessions in a package deal?"

As I saw her turn her back to me I broke out into a smirk. I adjusted my posture, now sitting confidently back on he couch with my arms crossed and my feet propped up on her expensive table.

"Your secretary messed up the spelling of my last name. It's spelled 'P-H-A-N-T-O-M'. And Eric isn't my real name, either."

I watched her shoulder stop moving as the sounds of ruffling folders cut off. I watched her slowly look over her shoulder, her spectacles hanging off her nose as she looked at me with wide eyes. Where a greasy-haired punk in a baggy tank top and some paint-stained pants had slouched over the cushions, there was now a confidently reclining white-haired, green-eyed lad in a leather jacket with his boots sitting on her prized table. I winked one green eye and cocked one of my fingers at her as if she was a night club broad.

"…oh, did I forget to mention I knew you in high school?"

The moment she saw me she froze. For ten seconds she just stared, her knees shaking under her skirt as I just kept smiling and even winked at her.

She suddenly broke off into a high-heeled sprint towards her gigantic bookshelf. She grabbed that Chinese vase off the shelf with her claw-like fingernails as I just kept sitting on her couch with my feet up. She spun to face me with a devilish grin as she ripped off the lid of the vase and yelled just loud enough for the patients outside not to hear.

"_Bertrand! Tear him up!_"

She stood there holding the open vase for three seconds before she noticed nothing was happening. Her grinning face didn't move as she glanced down at the vase, shaking it a few times to possibly wake her servant up. After a few shakes she desperately turned the thing upside down. My smirked deepened as a few assorted jelly beans fell out onto the carpet. No Bertrand.

She slowly looked up at me with a nervous smile. I flashed back a genuine one, reaching into my jacket and pulling out a small vase identical to the one she was holding.

"Looking for this?"

She stared in terror at the vase I'd swiped off the shelf and replaced with an identical one. They sold them right in the airport, she must be an easy shopper. I tossed it between my hands as if it were a toy as her knees started shaking again.

"Smart idea. Keep your power source in a little container inside your office, he hears all the sessions and makes you younger without him ever getting you in trouble."

I watched her arms start trembling as I tucked the jar back into my jacket's inner pocket.

"…until you really need him."

I uncrossed my legs and stood up, walking over to where she stood. AsI casually approached she backed up against the shelf, moving her hand behind her towards where her purse sat. By the time I was a few feet in front of her, she started looking cocky again.

I didn't bat an eye when she yelled and whipped out a tiny bottle of what looked like mace. I just kept my arms crossed as she pulled the tab and covered my face in the fizzing fluid. I didn't even blink.

"…you're spraying me with a contact solution. While you were applying your eye shadow last session I may have went through your purse."

She dropped the 'mace' as if it burned and backed up into the corner of the shelf and the wall, her teeth chattering. Wow, talk about overacting fear. I stepped forward another foot, cornering her with the width of my shoulders while. I let my smile fade and started.

"…I'm guessing you weren't expecting me?"

She jerked her head to each side, an obvious no. I nodded in response, causing her to shrink back a bit more.

"I'm going to give you a break. I'm not going to beat you senseless, but that's only because you're obviously not a fighter. I'm going to go chuck your little friend into a river somewhere."

Her lips parted as if to say 'No!'. I slashed my throat with my index finger to shut her up.

"…and it won't be long before your precious youth starts leaving. If you head back to the Ghost Zone while you still can, you won't turn into dust. I suggest you leave your patients be and get out of here while you still can."

With that I tapped my head as if tipping a hat and went mirage, walking through her bookshelf into the busy hallway of the air terminal. Then I had a second thought and stuck my head back in, making it visible while the rest of me stayed out of sight in the hallway. I looked around and saw her just the way I left her.

"Oh, one last thing. You may have noticed the last few days that your birth control pills may have tasted like doctored breath mints. That was for saying I was gay."

I think it was either what I had told her, or that smirk I flashed her that caused her to fall over in a dead faint. I watched her hit the carpet with a smile before ducking back into the hallway and going solid in a bathroom. I walked out with my hands in my pockets, whistling a cheery tune as I made my way to the parking garage. I was satisfied with myself for the first time in a week. But man, if anyone is actually named 'Eric Phantoon' they're gon' be ticked when they get my therapy bill.

That Night

"…there's no way in _infierno_ that's you…"

I shrugged, adjusting the tongue of my left cross-trainer and making sure the lace knot was tight. I was sitting on the sloped roof section on top of the barn, stretched out and feeling the night air breeze by as I sat next to a figure clad entirely in red. You know what I'm getting at. Sitting next to me was what could very easily be Val Gray in her trademark ghost hunting outfit, complete with helmet and gun belt. Except instead of some heroic pose she was reclined in the same way I was against the roof tiles, holding a digital picture frame and clicking through the Fenton Photo-Album.

"…speaking of Hell, why the heck are you still wearing that thing?"

The red-gloved hand idly reached up and flipped up the visor, revealing two distinct green eyes behind it in the pale moonlight.

"C'Mon…_tell_ me I don't make this outfit look good."

I snorted.

"Fine. Kirby, you look ridiculous, and since my sisters saw you in it they want to redesign their combat suits again. How did you not see them sitting on the porch?"

She reached up and with some difficulty pulled the helmet off, leaving tangles of black hair around her head. In the moon's blue glow it made her look like she had a mangled blue halo around her head.

"Hey, she left specific instructions about the backpack. I get her old suit, you get her book series."

"…where did it say that? You stole that thing out of the pack before I could give it to Frost as a blanket."

…yeah, you heard me. Gray left a jumpsuit and helmet in the backpack that was identical to the one she usually wore. I'm not sure if it was just one of her extras and she needed more closet space, or if she gave me the one and only suit to symbolize a passing of the mantle. Either way, it doesn't make sense. Who would give Kirby something any riskier than a pair of safety scissors? And why the heck would she give _me_ the suit?

Sure, it's a nice gesture but I hate jumpsuits and that shade of red with a passion. And even if I _did_ want to try it on it probably wouldn't fit. Not that I'd try it on when no one's home and do poses in the mirror until Kirby walks in and laughs so hard I have to do CPR.

Why ever she gave me/her the thing, Kirby keeps trying it on and just doing certain things in it. Hitting bags in the barn with the close combat weapons it came with. Trying out gymnastics routines in it. Looking in the mirror and trying out cool catchphrases. Walking out to the mailbox and shuffling through my mail and waving at the mailman as he goes by.

It probably didn't freak him out, he's used to me getting the paper in my shorts and my sisters getting their fan mail dressed in bubble wrap. Yes, bubble wrap. It's a special ghost-proof polymer with extra shock layers. And after it gets torn up in battle with the undead, you can let kids stomp on it.

Yeah yeah, you want to know how she looks in it. Well, six foot tall Latin girl in head-to-toe red leather. I can't be sure, but some guys would find that attractive somehow. I'm not sure why, I direct all feelings toward the opposite gender into my training. That sums up my knowledge of dating. This is why one of my come-ons is 'I'm the Keeper of the Keys, are you the Gatemaster?". Once in a while, the poor girl has actually seen that movie and laughs.

So, we were sitting on the roof of the barn while Kirby flicked through our digital photo album. Before I changed the subject, she had been referring to a picture that had been taken at that same convention outside Amity Park. In fact in one of the pictures you can just make me waking out in the background. Minutes before Sam picked me up, drove me over to the Fenton home…you get the point. I didn't realize it until just now, but I wasn't looking so great.

Kirby flicked the slider back to the left and the screen switched to a group photo of the speaker's table. On the very end, looking away from the camera sat a guy who just screamed down on his luck. I wouldn't have known it was me if not for that terrible white outfit.

I leaned over to look at the face of my former self. I could just make out the darker shading under my eyes, and the tightness around my jaw that marked my face for months after Walt died. In the picture, my posture was leaning forward as if I couldn't support myself. Now that I look back, I remember that's just the way I felt without my trainer.

I was right near the end of the mourning cycle when I snuck out of that party. I probably would have been a derelict for a few more months if my life hadn't been derailed in that basement some time after the picture was taken.

As I stared at my old self and wondered how my mind had changed since then, Kirby took a more observant angle.

"…you looked like your ghost form."

I quickly pried my eyes off the boy in the picture to see Kirby was looking down at the picture with her head tilted and her eyes distant. I followed her gaze to see she was also looking at my section of the picture.

"I'm not following…"

She tapped one of her nails on my two dimensional face.

"You looked…um, you looked like hell, Cuz'."

I shrugged, glancing up at the half-moon briefly.

"I guess. Back then people saw me coming and pulled their kids behind them."

She didn't laugh. She had no reason to. She went on, squinting at my old portrait.

"The hair…you mentioned you wore it kinda' long after Walt passed."

She looked up without moving her head, probably at my current hairstyle. Cut short along the grain, with semi-long bangs covering my forehead. But in hat picture I had layered locks going down to my eyes.

"I cleaned up a bit."

She gave me an odd look before looking back down at the picture screen with a slight eyebrow perk.

"I wondered why your hair changed whenever you shifted. This guy in the picture is your ghost form without the ghost colors. Like you were half-frozen in time, at the worst part of your life."

I raised an eyebrow, but it drifted back down as I realized her angle. True, I didn't look as friendly as a ghost. If anything I looked like I'd been through more trials in life, maybe a bit more attractive with the tan. Kirb' once joked that she thought I looked _desesperado _with green eyes and the silver tintSpanish for badass, for those who have the misfortune of not being Cuban.

Personally, I never look too closely at my dead half. But now that I had seen this picture, I could see why hose spooks didn't like me. I looked like Danny back from a round trip to Hades, and he got the seat next to the bus bathroom in the back. Not essentially scary. But to people who've seen Danny Phantom, they'd probably rethink skipping church all those years.

"Must be like a death thing. Some ghosts look exactly like they did the last second they were alive. Only difference with me is the fact I kept on living in my other form."

She nodded slightly, clicking the slider again and changing the subject as she stumbled upon pictures of a sleepover the twins had last month. So we went from talking about ghosts to how the heck Sherri could do that one thing in the picture. All while Kirby was dressed in that stupid outfit. I swear, the next time she takes it off I'm dumping it in the oven. Unless it's fireproof, then I'd just have to adjust to her new fashion sense and come to terms with Val's sick sense of humor. Or then again, we just got that new trash compactor…

The Next Day

For the first time in a couple weeks, Kirby went out shopping with my sisters and a few visiting friends and forgot to drag me along on a leash. Well, forgot is such a word. She kind of looked all over the house yelling for me to stop hiding while I followed her around the house in stealth mode, like you've never taken advantage of invisibility. Oh, like you wanted me to spend my days lugging dozens of bags around while my slave drivers chat amongst themselves in a language I've yet to learn. I honestly think they consider 'Oh-My-God!' as a vowel. And 'Shut, up!' is like the wimpy vowel that never gets any respect, like Y. Look at the little guy, he's waving both arms to get your attention. He's trYing waY too hard.

My parents decided to go to a convention alone to give my sisters a break from the cameras. They want the girls to have a healthy, normal childhood dressed in bubble wrap and looking for ghosts. Once the girls write their autobiographies my father's going to come off as the biggest jerk since the dad of that one African American kid who grew up into a creepy white guy back in the day. I forget his name, Mike Something.

Well, even when I get lucky it doesn't last. Ten minutes after the girls drove off I made the mistake of turning on the TV and flipping past a channel that often does newsflashes. Of course, a wave of freakishly huge green animals is attacking a Cub Scout Retreat three hours away. And the bike is out of commission. It needs new brakes because Kirby can't stop unless she pushes the thing into a blacktop donut. And the icing on the cupcake, it's also raining golf-ball sized hail where the zombie animals are attacking. And all the news channels have cameras set up.

Why, didn't I just pop in a movie…

Author's Note

Why is Alan acting like he is? Those 'therapy' sessions had him up the wall, hence his shorter fuse and need for quiet. He'll be back to his gentle old self by the next entry, he considers ghost-bashing stress therapy. You may notice he's morally against unfair weaponry, just like first chapter mentions. Is Kirby going to be a ghost hunter now? Heck no, she just likes the outfit. Why does Alan hate it so much? He has mixed feelings for Val, even after all the gifts and warnings he feels she considers him inferior to Danny. He agrees with her, he just doesn't like to think about it. Read and Review, thanks for reading. This chapter was a bit rushed, I'll work more on it after the demolition der...eh...antique car show.


	15. Chapter 15

DISCLAIMER: See Previous Entries

Pre-Note: Alan-heavy chapter, I apologize.

You know, after all these years in the ring being beaten about the head has gone from an intense pain to just a dull sensation. You could whack me around with brass knuckles all day and I'd get bored. In fact I was putting this into practice as I was once again hanging from a set of chains, this time strung up on a brick wall as a semi-human ghost clad in police riot gear tried to get me to even flinch with his nightstick and knuckle guards.

A portly fellow standing a good head taller than myself stood back in the shadows, frowning at his lackey and telling him to try hitting me harder. The guy in the SWAT outfit panted and told him that was a negative, Sir.

Meanwhile, as my head whipped back from every blow, I debated a far more important matter.

"…what was that line at the end of the Fresh Prince song…?'At home, in Bel Air' or something about a throne…"

_Crack_, my neck swung freely as he struggled to even cut my brow with those ecto-fist guards. I'm the great-grandson of Jack Fenton himself. It's going to take more than a tank blast to get through this head. The thug grunted and swatted one last time at my eye, I tilted my neck and smirked a bit as he cried out in pain. He pulled back his hand slowly, having broken it against the wall behind my head.

He shuffled off on his ghostly tail, whimpering as his boss just rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. He growled to the identical SWAT ghost who stood next to him.

"…it took us decades of searching after the breakout…and an entire platoon with back up to even get him in restraints…and you're telling me after all this you imbeciles can't even torture him? He's just hanging there babbling about Chris Rock!"

I glared, pretty difficult to do while your ankles and wrists are spread and strapped to a prison wall in the far reaches of the Ghost Zone.

"…Will Smith, Einstein…if you stopped watching 'Shawshank Redemption' all hours of the day you'd know a bit more about historical sitcoms."

My new warden gave me a smoldering look before stomping out through the green-brick doorway, leaving the guard with both his hands intact to watch over me. I hung there wondering if it was noon yet, until the sound of digital boxing bell emitted from my jacket pocket. Well, what was left of my jacket, it looked more like a vest after going through prisoner registration. I sighed at my position before looking over at my guard and whistling. He looked over with a raised eyebrow. I nodded at my jacket as the fight bell kept ringing.

"…mind getting my phone for me? It's on a clip along the inseam, and could you hit the receive call button?"

He stared blankly at his hanging prisoner before shrugging and snatching my phone from my jacket. He flipped it open, and even propped it against my shoulder so I could hold it there with my chin. I nodded and thanked him before addressing the caller.

"'Lo?"

The sound was a bit faint, cell phone reception sucks in the realm of the afterlife. I listened to a familiar chatter, nodding slightly.

"Yeah, I'm in Walker's."

Chatter-chatter.

"…no, _Walker_, not Skulker. I get 'em mixed up too, it's the skullhead thing I guess."

More chirping noises from the phone.

"…oh, she called? What's goin' on in Florida?"

My guard went back to brandishing his nightstick, staring at the doorway while I hung from my wrists in ghost-proofed shackles and carried on the conversation.

"…_What_?"

More indistinguishing chatter.

"…when was she going to tell me this? She gave me a profile on every big ghost, and she forgot _this?"_

My guard glanced over curiously, but for the most part he didn't care.

"I've been in here for…"

I squinted sideways and glanced at the screen on my flip-phone.

"…an hour and a half! That's enough time to shave my head and do a cavity search!"

I sighed as the chirping caller asked.

"…no, they just have me strapped to a wall, beating me to get me to break, yadda yadda yadda, tell Sam I said hi."

I spent a minute closing my phone with my shoulder and chin before picking it up with my mouth and dropping it into my jacket. My guard had long since lost attention, and I smirked to myself as I looked over his a-ready form. Well, now that I had _this_ handy little bit of trivia I could have a bit of fun with it.

"…psst…wanna see something really scary?"

The thug just though or a moment before crossing his arms and turning to me. He nodded. Yeah, this was going to be fun.

Ten Minutes Later

I dusted the ecto-dust off my shirt as I stepped out of the portal, looking around the dark chamber and hoping I was correct in my estimates and I wasn't in Wisconsin. I sighed in relief as I recognized the weaponry racks and lab tables of Val's Lab. I was clad in the same sleeveless and torn jeans I'd pulled on that morning. Why didn't Sam tell me about humans in the Ghost Zone? I turned around and admired the swirling green portal, wondering when Val activated it. Speaking of which…

I walked over to a panel on the side of the steel arch and banged a red button with a biohazard box around it. Seconds later the green glow of the portal was extinguished, leaving a bare metal tube. Last thing I need is more ghosts to round up, as much as I love making ecto-cowboy hats and faking accents. Hopefully that's the last time I use the noun 'ecto'.

As I turned to walk off the platform and toward the entrance to the warehouse, I froze in my tracks. Poking up from behind a large piece of machinery was a human head staring at me like…well, like I'd walked out of a portal to the afterlife mumbling about Fresh Prince. I squinted, he warehouse lights were off and the windows barely gave enough light for me to recognize the distinctive head shape.

"…Aron?"

The outline of the head rose up and became a human torso, rubbing its neck. My gym buddy, Aron, was hiding in Val's unused lab for some reason and had seen me walk out of the portal. Oh, Boy…

"…what the heck are you doing in…"

Right as I went to finish my question, my tongue froze as another head popped up next to Aron's shadowed torso. I recognized the corn rows instantly.

"…Wasp…?"

She nodded in embarrassment, not moving up from behind the console so I just saw her head. I looked between the two for a moment, remembering they were engaged. I also noticed Aron wasn't wearing a shirt, and Wasp kept hiding herself below the neck. I started sidling to the left, towards the entrance to the lab.

"Um…while you two put some clothes on and reconsider waiting until the wedding night, I'm going to run like heck and pretend this never happened…'Kay? Okay."

Aron shrugged and waved while his dark face blushed itself darker, Wasp's hand appeared next to her crouched head and she did the same nervously. I managed to maintain a calm composure until I walked out into the sunny city streets, slammed the warehouse door behind me and fell forward onto the pavement rolling in laughter.

Two Hours Later

"…and they were…?"

I spat out a bug and chuckled at the memory.

"Yeah…saved me a heck of a story to tell, but at least we know they're in love?"

My cousin broke out in an outrageous cackling spell as she leaned up over the bars of the bike. After recovering from my humor-induced seizure I called Kirby to pick me up, and now she was tearing dirt towards the ranch as I sat behind her on the bike, holding her shoulders with two fingertips to avoid flying off. If I was the one driving, Kirby would have her hands around my waist with her chin on my shoulder. This is why I wear a leather jacket often, it keeps a layer of padding between the two of us.

She's not the flirtatious (…or incestuous) type, she's just…well, after years of doing psychic readings for her mom at the studio she often introduces herself, shakes a person's hand and starts examining his or her palm to give them a weather forecast. Many Latin families are just very touchy-feely. My other cousin Maria just got married, and her husband spent his first few minutes as a married man getting kissed on the mouth by everyone in the family and trying not to heave.

Kirb' is just a walking impulse. If she likes your shirt she'll pull up your collar and check the label. She thinks your hat is unique? She'll pull it off your head and try it on as she reads your palm. She likes your eye color? Well, you have a pretty Cuban girl an inch from your face staring at you like a hungry cat. Thankfully, she only gave me the eye treatment when I first showed her my ghost form.

So, here I was holding onto the shoulders of one of my old jackets as she smoothly swerved through a dust patch past the driveway entrance towards the tiny town square down the road, towards the center of this little farm town. I raised an eyebrow and figured we were out of coffee beans, jelly beans, or whatever else Kirby eats in bean form. As the road became firmer and the noise lessened, she asked.

"So what's the Ghost Zone like?"

I shrugged, nearly falling off the back-pad onto the road.

"Green. Lots and lots of green. That's, about it…"

The ride went in silence until we coasted into an empty piece of road next to the pharmacy. Well, officially it's a chain store pharmacy, but around here it's the general store. The grocery complex is in the next town over, so all the little things come from here. I used to run out here all the time in the mornings when I was training. Kirby had the hang of coming here after the first week living with us. She's infamous around these parts, and she's only been here barely a month. Minutes later I was holding a stack of magazines as she perused the racks and occasionally stacking another into my arms.

"So, when did Sam call exactly?"

She flipped the pages of a guitar magazine like a flipbook before putting it back and tossing me another.

"She said she saw those ghost-cops on the news. She figured you'd end up with Skulker one way or another."

"…Walker…"

She nodded with a snap of her fingers as she began walking towards the checkout. I followed carrying about twenty magazines.

"Walker! Yeah, she told me to tell you about that one thing."

I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, humans being near invincible in the Ghost zone is just bar trivia. She needs to write these things down. Her 'occasional mentoring' is going to get me killed."

My cousin, adjusting the hem of her top as she saw an empty register.

"Yeah, you used to talk every couple nights. Now that she's teaching again she just calls you when something's about to explode."

I sighed.

"…did she say _what_ she's teaching?"

She paid for the magazines with a Fenton-debit card and answered when we were outside again, out of earshot.

"She's doing high school literature again, and subbing for Ancient Egypt Club."

I shook my head, shaking off a smile in the process. I took the opportunity to claim the driver's seat of the bike as Kirby resigned to her usual shotgun position.

"Sounds like her. Remind me to show you that little cross necklace with the bird-guy on it, she keeps telling me it means something."

As I eased the key down the ignition and started us down the road Kirb' asked if that's where I got the idea for that tattoo between my shoulder blades. I just shrugged and spat out another bug. This bike needs a bigger windshield.

The Next Day

Lately my daily routine has been torn up. I manage to get to the gym every day, nine to noon like clockwork. But while I used to spend every day from noon 'till dark killing time, this last month has derailed my once simple lifestyle. Eight months ago I just worked out and read mystery novels all day. Now I have a realm of supernatural creature to fight off, a long dead relative to emulate, a chain of similar murders that is obviously the same guy but there's no case file, and to top it all off I'm stuck with that cousin of mine.

It's like my life is a sitcom in the later seasons and the writers are pulling out all the 'hip' stuff to attract a younger audience. What next, is my long-lost twin brother going to come back from Mongolia? Hey, maybe a bunch of reluctant guest stars who no one has heard of will pop in!

Well, there was nothing 'hip' about walking out of the gym to put a coin in the meter while Kirby's in a sparring session, only to find five cop cruisers pulled into a little pentagon in the center of the intersection. Needless to say I forgot about my gym hours to run over to the barricade where a few people had come to watch. I shoved my way to the tape line and looked over the crowd to see an officer pulling a canvas sheet over something sprawled out on the edge of the sidewalk.

I felt the blood drain from my face as I heard the senior officer holding a medical kit state the time on his watch. These other spectators didn't know it, but they just called a time of death. That wasn't a dog or smashed bike under the sheet like the couple next to me was whispering. That was a body, and not a dog either.

Right as I was about to walk away I saw one of the coppers walk by with a plastic bag sticking out of his pocket. Jingling in the bottom, barely visible was what looked like a lumpy piece of metal. My eyes narrowed, I've seen little pellets identical to that at the last few crime scenes I 'visited'. Soft-core shells.

That chain of murders I've been keeping tabs on? Mostly younger women in high-class areas. Occasionally, a random male found in a public area that wouldn't be connected to the others if not for the bullet type. One of the detectives thought the women were pre-selected targets. The men were people connected to the killer who may rat on him. I agreed, even though he couldn't see an invisible boy nod after he said it.

I stared at the evidence bag as the man holding it ducked into his car and fired up the radio. I just turned away from the scene and started walking back towards the gym entrance. Right as I reached the sidewalk on the edge of the street I heard some one loudly gasp, one of the women watching the show jus found out it was a guy under there. I looked over my shoulder and watched some one comfort the woman, I nodded slightly and went to turn back when I did a double take at the crowd behind the barrier.

I saw a man walking away from the group in the opposite direction I had. I turned around all the way as he turned a corner into an alley that would lead to the next block. I stepped to the side so I could see his figure going further away from the scene. Now, it's all a haze to me now that I look back on this. But I've worked out what went through my head when I saw that guy pull the lid of his baseball cap down over his eyes as he turned the corner. The problem is, if I told you why I did what I did, you'd never look at me the same way.

Twenty Nine Minutes Later

I really should learn to pick locks or something. I keep ending up tied to something. It's like those back issues of Wonder Woman, every cover was a bondage scenario.

I was handcuffed behind my back to a side railing on the roof of a five story brownstone building a few blocks from the gym. I wasn't the worse for wear, except for the whole secured to a rail thing. Standing in front of me were three of the officers who had seen the chase from the crime scene and came to help the man in the trench coat, who was now sprawled out on the concrete as a younger officer tried to get him to open his eyes. The man had been a bit scrubby when I started trailing him, long greasy hair, hasn't shaved in a while, a few scars along his pale temples.

Well, now he was unconscious with probably a few concussions judging by the way his head was changing color. His hat had fallen off when he tried to get up the fire scrape, before I cornered him on this roof. Before the officers caught up, held a gun to my head and stopped me from snapping his neck with a right hook. You heard me.

The officer couldn't revive the 'victim' but it was obvious he was alive. As for the other two officers, they were standing in front of me nursing several blossoming bruises on their torsos while looking at me like an animal in the zoo. I was casually leaning against my chained arms, staring straight ahead with unfocused eyes. My POW act again. These guys looked like they just got out of a car wreck, and I didn't have a scratch on me. Except for a small nick on my left fist from when the guy's gold tooth cap went flying.

They'd just been staring at me like this ever since they managed to get me in cuffs. They'd move a good ten feet away, out of range of a swinging strike. This little silent meeting went on until the stairway entrance on the corner of the roof opened up and out walked a man dressed in a white button down shirt and dark slacks, with a dark jacket over his shoulder. I could see from across the roof the dark spots under his arms and on the back of his shirt, he was a heavy set guy and it was a warmer day. As he came closer I saw the bulge of a shoulder strap under his shirt, obviously a gun holster. Plain clothes cop.

As he walked up the uniformed officers nodded at him, one of which holding the unconscious man's head, he just waved away the formality and wiped a sheet of sweat off his red face. He was cleanly shaven but there was a shaving cut on his chin. He looked over the unconscious man before glancing over in the little area where I was chained up. He nodded at me as he dropped the scarred wrist of the man in the trench coat.

"…what's with Rambo?"

I didn't acknowledge his joke, continuing to play the catatonic card. One of the bruised cops answered.

"Boss, before you got here he was berserk. We had a Glock on him and he kept beating this guy down, some people down on he street saw the two running down two blocks before getting up on a fire escape."

The obvious superior squinted his crow-footed eyes at me, sizing me up through my gym shirt and comparing my physique to that of the lanky man on the pavement. The officer went on.

"…the stiff Wils' is taking care of was looking at the scene near that gym. This guy started following him when he walked off and it turned into a roof top chase. This kid's an animal, Mart' saw him jump that alley to get this guy before he got to the steps."

The detective glanced at a narrow alley on the west side of the building, close to where the man was laying. I noticed they didn't call a paramedic, thankfully.

"When we got up here, the Bionic Man here was beating this bum into a pulp. Kept screaming something but we didn't catch it. He even kept trying to break the cuffs while we stabilized the victim, before he went quiet he just kept trying to just kill this guy."

Their superior whistled toward my inactive form, trying to get me to react. I didn't give him the honor. He joked in a clear urban accent.

"Christ…no motive, Stallone here just went after the guy? Jumped off a roof?"

The officer crouched next to the body shrugged.

"We thought he was some homeless Vet' till we saw his clothes. He looks pretty clean, maybe they were passing some drugs around in that boxing gym and this lug' had too much."

I winced under my shirt at the prospect of getting a drug charge. Their leader waved that away.

"Well, we'll save the pat-down for later. If he had anything on 'im you guys would be dead. He's got that look in his eye, he had a reason for this."

…I struggled to keep my eyes as unresponsive as possible as the man in the sweaty shirt knelt down and felt the neck of the man I'd nearly killed. He just whistled, obviously more used to this than his subordinates.

"Kid's somethin' else. This guy ain't gonna get up on his own. Jim. Get his feet and…"

I suddenly called out in a clear voice, my throat aching from all that screaming.

"Check his jacket."

The three blues nearly had heart attacks as they spun towards me with their hands on their belts, ready in case I lost it again. The detective examining my target just glanced over and shrugged, opening the man's sweat-soaked coat and feeling the interior. The three uniforms stared at me like a ghost, I calmly looked back with my ever slight intelligence showing in my eyes instead of the fury they'd seen minutes ago. They were about to pull their nightsticks to give me a talking to just in case, when the plain-clothes loudly whistled again.

He pulled out a piece of cloth from his shirt pocket before reaching into the coat lining and pulling out a rather large handgun, holding it between two covered fingertips. I knew it was to preserve fingerprints, but his hands were sweaty enough for the thing to slide right out of his grasp without the cloth.

The three blues stared at their glaring mistake before one of them stated.

"Uh…we figured the guy was clean?"

The man in the white/gray shirt just shook his head in disgust as he pulled on some gloves and started examining the gun.

"We have a crime scene a few blocks over and you guys let a gun walk away on its lonesome…"

One look at the handle and the man called out.

"Serial's been filed off…this guy ain't exactly carrying a permit either…"

One of the blues started explaining once again how it wasn't their fault, I cut him off with one clear sentence.

"…check the panel inside the ammo hanger for a label. The manufacturer doesn't list it on the box."

While the three cops turned and stared at me like a talking statue, their leader just nodded at my advice and popped out a full cartridge, tilting the gun and looking into the slot. He nodded, confirming I was right as his partners looked at each other as if their officer was on the same drugs I was supposedly using.

"…978 series, this shipment number was stolen a few months back."

I nodded to myself, not satisfied enough to smile but I had been right. I then laid out my ace.

"Check the ammo type."

Without hesitation, as if he were listening to Clint Eastwood himself and not some berserk vigilante cuffed to a railing, he undid a hand-bolt and poured the shells into his cupped hand. He stared at the rust-colored little pellets before looking up at his confused minions and stating with a shrug.

"…soft core…boys, we got him."

I watched with a barely raised eyebrow as for ten minutes the lugs switched between dancing around cheering for each other and just staring at the downed body of a serial killer that has just claimed his last kill in front of my gym. I continued standing against the railing, waiting for them to remember how they got their hands on him. Well, at least I'd get to hear my rights before they ship me off to a holding cell and leave me there. I knew I was screwed, but that guy was off the streets.

Eventually two of the blues picked up the body and carried it towards the stairway as another called for a paramedic and a backup escort. Meanwhile, the detective just looked at his watch, looking strangely content while they carried the 'victim' off. Eventually he and the remaining blue walked over to where I was chained, standing a good distance away but no longer treating me like an animal. The blue held back while his superior just smirked at me with yellowed teeth, and just kept looking at me.

"…Kid, you may have just saved yourself a couple years off your jail sentence."

I muttered 'Oh, Boy' under my breath as the blue asked how to secure me to the cruiser. Both the younger officer and myself went blank as the detective stated.

"…go help get the stiff into the med', I need to have a talk with this gentleman."

The blue insisted he stay, but the detective forced him back top the steps before walking up to where I was cuffed as he fumbled in his shirt pocket for something. He walked up to where I stood without the fear of his colleagues, I stayed still as he unhooked the cuffs from behind my back. I kept my arms behind me so he could bind my wrists and take me down the steps at gunpoint.

I nearly did a Don Knotts impersonation as I saw him pull the cuffs from behind me and drop them into that pocket of his as he stepped back and crossed his arms, leaving me free to move my arms or kill him like they feared I would. I gave him a confused look before allowing my wrists to swing back under my shoulders. He squinted at me before clicking his tongue in an obvious Spanish manner, this guy was Latin.

"…don't say a word. This is confusing the hell outta' me kid."

I shrugged slightly, having from berserker to estranged voice of reason, to the innocent guy I was most of the time.

"Sir, I couldn't explain it if I tried."

He laughed a bit, crossing his arms tighter as he looked me over for any injuries.

"I'm not gonna' ask how you know what you do."

…well, there goes six pages of me pulling stories out of my…

"I'm not going to ask how you knew who this guy was. You're not a psycho, you knew he was."

I nodded in sarcastic thanks as he went on in a lecture tone.

"…this is my last day of work, Son."

I let my eyebrows creep up as he stated this. And this is my last day as a guy with no criminal record, what's your point? It got worse as he smiled at me and bragged.

"Been at this for years. Had a good run, met some good people and caught some bad ones. And tonight I get a nice dinner in my name, and a framed badge that they only give to good cops. Of course, I'm getting three."

…wow, cops really are bad comedians. He's bragging to some random thug how he's getting a retirement party.

I managed not to look uninterested as the detective switched subjects without even batting a beady eye.

"…you wanna' be a cop, Kiddo?"

…and they thought _I_ was on PCP? I just stared blankly. He took this as a yes and went on, uncrossing his meaty arms.

"I can tell…Son, you wanna' be a collar, you gotta' get a sense of humor. You nearly killed this guy. That's _our_ privilege. Us Fed's have been after him for months, and you just ended it in a half hour."

I slowly moved my wrists in front of me, waiting to get cuffed. I never did. He waved my hands down and switched to a sterner tone.

"Don't expect a reward for this. People don't get medals from the mayor for saving cats from trees anymore."

I didn't miss a beat.

"…is that guy going to hurt anyone else?"

This sent the cop back a foot, but he recovered quickly and told me.

"As long as he lives, not a chance."

I slowly nodded.

"…that's all the reward I need."

A small smile crossed his wrinkled face before he nodded and without a mention of whether I was going to be arrested, turned his sweat-soaked back and started walking towards the stairs. I hadn't moved from where they'd chained me, even after my wrists were free. I watched in disbelief as he waddled off before calling.

"Hey!"

He looked over his shoulder at me, still walking.

"…aren't you going to give me my rights? A nightstick beating? Anything?"

He shrugged, reaching into his pocket as he turned to me once more. He pulled out what looked like a wallet and tossed it onto the steaming concrete between us.

"You want to get punished? Take it. It's a curse, but it's done a lot for me. Keep it clean, Rambo."

With that he saluted me with one thick finger and walked off to the stairs, closing the door behind him. I think he was humming one of the songs on Kirby's album. Of course, being left alone on a roof top after something that makes you forget music. I stood there for a good ten minutes before going down the stairs myself, finding no cops waiting for me. I walked undisturbed back to the gym, not a cop car in sight, and only one cadet hanging around the chalk body marker out front. On the way off the roof I scooped up that wallet thing and tucked in my pocket without looking at it, still in a daze.

I managed to fake a normal disposition as I entered the noise-filled chamber of my old gym, walking up to the sparring ring and watching two lightweights circle each other like tigers and trade graceful strikes. I recognized the style and outfit of one of the female regulars, but the other took me a while to recognize. Not because she looked unfamiliar, I'd recognized Kirby's headgear anywhere. But, the way she was moving…

I've been teaching Kirby to fight like a pure boxer. They stay back, move around a lot and occasionally throw a good punch when they find an opening. With two pure boxers, a fight becomes a chess match. She was fighting another one, but now the way I'd been teaching her. She was weaving and circling like a ballet dancer, that much was similar.

But instead of laying back, she was taking the aggressive, literally cornering the other girl and ripping out endless combinations. Every time she stepped forward there was a hiss of air as she exhaled in the middle of a flurry of black leather. That's what we call a swarmer, they throw punches as if they come on ammo belts. And by the way her partner was backing up, Kirby was a dang good one.

It was obvious even with her inexperience who had won the match. As the time bell rung, Kirby stopped her flurry in mid-cross to just reach out those dangling arms of hers and hug her dazed opponent, thanking her for the great match before vaulting over the velvet ropes and waltzing off o the water fountain.

Both her partner and myself stared as she walked off dangling her sparring gloves against her tapered waist. I walked over to the edge of the elevated ring as her partner hopped out.

"Hey, how'd she do, Cher?"

She slipped her headgear off of her brunette curls before just shaking her head at me.

"Fent', she beat me three to one. Since when is she a super-swarmer? It was like I was fighting _you_ in there…"

…did I mention I was a swarmer? I was a swarmer. I reached up to rub my sun-warmed neck.

"…eh…she watches my old fights a lot. She must have copied me along with some other big guys."

My old sparring partner blew a brown curl away from her pale face, raising a thick eyebrow at me.

"…more like you, you, and you that one time you wore green shorts."

With that she walked off to cool down. Kirby walked up carrying her gloves and headset in both hands, flashing her pure-white teeth at me from under her gold face.

"'Bout time you came in. Missed a good match."

I shrugged, not making eye contact.

"…eh…one of my sisters called, had to step out and tell her how to fix the air conditioner."

My fighting prodigy nodded, walking off to the locker room hand expecting me to follow. I stayed next to the ring, still dazed from the encounter and now wondering how Kirby could learn to fight like that this early in training. As I went to follow her to the lockers, I pulled out my wallet to get a dollar bill for the vending machine. But when I flipped my wallet open the sight of gleaming gold stopped me in my tracks.

I saw that I was holding a worn, yet solid gold police badge emblazoned with an eagle and a wreath depicting the local division symbol with a stamp in the corner indicating FBI resources. He _did_ say they were giving him a new one… Quickly, I stashed the memento back in my pocket before Kirby noticed my lagging, and it stayed there until we got back to the ranch and Kirb' went off on her own to some dinner.

Ten seconds after her friend picked her up in a black pickup and I was slumped down in my desk chair, holding the discarded badge in front of me and just looking at my reflection in it. I replayed everything that man aid to me on the roof in my head a few times. Eventually I snapped the leather case closed, stashed the thing under my desk and buried myself in one of Val's ghost books for a few hours.

And for the first time in a long while, I fell asleep without popping useless cold pills with drowsy side effects or wearing myself down to near-death. I just woke up four hours later with the open book still on my lap, my head slumped to the side on my bedspread. And standing in front of my bed, was a visibly angered Latin girl dressed in a flowing green conga dress with her hands on her hips and her green eyes burning into my reclined form. I managed not to start shivering, I just asked.

"…how'd the dinner go?"

My cousin kept glaring, I managed not to look directly into her eyes. Her eyes, that's what always breaks me.

"So…I'm guessing you danced a bit?"

She brushed for my small talk, cutting to the quick.

"It was a retirement party for my dad's old squad partner…"

…oh…sweet…mother of…

"…good news, they caught the 'Soft-Shooter'."

I feigned confusion.

"Who…?"

Her eyes tightened.

"That psycho whose crime scenes you've been visiting…soft core ammunition?"

I chuckled nervously.

"Ohh…_that_ guy…so, they caught him on his last day? Wow."

She nodded, still looking at me like a horse thief.

"Yeah…my dad's friend caught him…said he got him on a parking violation…"

…wow, the guy can't tell a good joke but he can string a good fake story.

"…except the word in the men's restroom was that some guy chased the _híbrido _across five blocks, a five story fire escape and two roof tops…"

I slowly went pale under my faint tan. I managed not to sigh in relief as her features suddenly loosened, she slumped back into my chair covering her face with her hands. She rubbed her temples and asked in a much calmer tone.

"Cuz'…you spend all this time hiding your powers and you use them to get some worthless…"

I cut her off, snapping upright in my bed.

"…what?"

She was still rubbing her eyes, adjusting the hem of her dress with the other hand.

"Alan…your ghost powers are _for ghosts only!_"

…ghost…powers?

"Honestly, do you have any idea how screwed you could have gotten! If the cops or jail didn't kill you, Vlad would!"

I held up a hand, staring into space with my brow furrowed as she stopped yelling to look at me in confusion.

"…um…Kirb'…"

She visually went from worried and ticked, to plain out surprised.By now we could tell what the other was thinking, scary as it is.

"…you…took him down without them? Not even flying?"

I just shook my head, more at myself than to answer her question.

"…I woke up this morning, and actually opened and close my bathroom door…I usually walk through it…and when we got to the gym I didn't stop at the women's locker room…dear God, I actually forgot…"

In the light from my lamp on my end table, I could see Kirby's eyebrow raise just like mine would have.

"You…forgot about the whole ghost thing…?"

I just shrugged, leaning down and holding my forehead with one hand.

"Just slipped my mind…"

I heard her click her tongue, just like her father's friend had on the roof.

"…you…took the guy down like a cop?"

I waved my other hand across as if slashing a bag of potatoes with a knife.

"No, I took him down like the sicko deserved…"

I uncovered my eyes to find my cousin leaning back in her chair, just looking at me in a whole new spectrum. She finally broke into a small smile, getting up to leave.

"As much as I hate cop work… 'Detective Fenton' has a ring to it…"

She broke out into a sudden guffaw, sending me back against the bed in surprise as she walked over to my door joking she should write a song about that.

"…no, it doesn't have a ring to it…and I'm getting a lock for my door!"

My cousin, now down the hallway, just laughed louder.

Author's Notes

...I actually cut out a good deal of pages detailing what Alan did to the guy, and the chase. After I read it through I realized it was a side of Alan I don't like to write about. It wasn't pretty. Why did I focus on this whole cop thing? It has nothing to do with ghosts, right? Well, it's a big part of Alan. and now that it's a bit worked out I can focus more on his legacy as the Phantom. I wanted to show even without his powers, he's something else. If the scene with Aron and Wasp in the lab offended anyone, I apologize. It was a tribute to how yesterday I walked in on the two (engaged) boxers I based their characters on. I found it hilarious, they didn't, so I'm putting it on the web. And just for fun, look up Egyptian Gods and find out where I'm going with that little Horus guy on Alan's necklace. I dare you.


	16. Chapter 16

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

WARNING: Alan-heavy towards the beginning. And in the later half, there may be a few scenes that of course are not sexual or trashy in nature, but may not be for those who who get nervous around blood.

Do I ever regret not being able to drink? What would my life be like if I could sip wine without keeling over ending up looking at the food I'd eaten the day before? I can't imagine myself being much of a drinker. Well, before Kirby moved in anyway. Speaking of Kirinia, they just lit up a spot light on her section of the dance floor.

Why was I pondering alcohol, and why was Kirby stealing the show on the wood-tiled dance floor in the center of the club? Why do I keep asking rhetorical questions? You see, the earlier that day a van full of greasy camera guys pulled up to the ranch house and said they were starting the documentary. My parents didn't mind the lack of a warning and the fact we weren't ready for them. Within the hour they were situated in the guest rooms and were filming the family member introductions in the upstairs library.

I'm not sure where my plan formulated. I think it was somewhere between when I was replacing the brakes on the bike and the van pulled up, and when my dad boasted about the private jet we haven't used in eight months but keep in constant readiness. Two hours later and I was kicking back at 30'000 feet reading 'The Final Problem' while my cousin, who had insisted on coming, hung out in the cockpit with the rather young pilot my folks hired to keep the plane maintained.

Honestly, the only reason I brought her along was because she caught onto my escape plan and was already waiting on the bike by the time I packed and snuck out to the barn. She didn't ask where we were headed until after we were flying over Georgia. I just told her Samantha liked to be surprised, she had a few extra rooms, and there was no way in the Ghost Zone we were going to put up with that reality show camera crew. She just nodded and went back to reading the pilot's palm as we coasted on autopilot.

Did I like the private plane thing? Well, the satellite TV was nice, the living area was comfortable and I could actually fit in the bathroom. And the cargo area is big enough that I strapped the bike down and took it with us down to Tampa, I wouldn't trust Kirby or myself with a rental car. It's either that mind-fogging new car smell that gets to us, or the fact it's completely insured, and there are a _lot_ of fruit stands down there…

We rode the rest of the way to the tropical but hardly tourist ridden section of Florida Sam retired to. Actually, she's not retired anymore, middle school is still in session down here and she's teaching again. We knew she wouldn't be back until midnight with her schedule and lifestyle, so we stopped off at a local night club to kill time. It was a neon-filled little place with a nice dance floor and a decent bar, but it was filled with rich college kids on vacation and spending their parents' money left and right.

So, a club full of snoots in Hawaiian shirts standing around grumbling about their cell phone bills. And then the bored DJ put on some hit from the 80s, getting a few people out on the dance floor. You see, back at her mom's studio Kirby actually teaches a few dance classes. One of which is an urban Latin style that dominated the 1980s. Before I could roll my eyes and tell her not to embarrass herself, she was already out in the middle of the floor dancing by her lonesome but showing up everyone else in the club.

Currently, there was a ring of impressed seniors around her nodding and whistling as she played the pro dancer on vacation card. To make things worse, she tossed me her jacket half way through the chorus so she could try break-dancing, and succeeded. I probably could tell you pages upon pages of how well she dances. She's something else. But the thing is, I've been watching her be something else for years, and it's just another day for me.

So while she was putting Jennifer Lopez the Second to shame and making every female eye turn green with a flip of her silky hair, I was off at the bar pondering why diet soda doesn't taste like diet soda if you add less club soda to it. The honey-brunette working the bar was leaning over the marble next to me, her long face propped on one elbow as she watched my cousin like she was a celebrity. Well, a movie celebrity, Kirby's more of a musical celeb.

"…she said she was from Middle West…who'd think she was a steel-town girl?"

I pretended to scratch my forehead, but I was actually physically holding down my eyebrow as the bartender gave her view on my cousin to the slightly-empty bar. I pretended not to hear her over the music, but a guy in a flowered spandex shirt showing off his ribcage snapped back.

"I saw her at some concert. I think Mexican girls are just naturally hot."

I once again pretended not to hear, but I had to raise my dark glass to my mouth to hide my quivering upper lip, the Mexican comment nearly had me rolling on the floor. When I set my glass back down the tender heard the hollow clink and glanced over at where I looked down at the bar top.

"…need a refill, Sug'?"

Before I could tell her no thank you she snatched my glass with an arm that resembled a broomstick, shooting the fountain hose into it and setting a now full glass in front of me. I thanked her, she waved it off with her Southern accent.

"Hey, you come in he-uh' with a girl like that, I think you deserve a little lee-shuh."

…eh…did she mean leisure? I'm going to hope she did. I smiled a bit, nodding slightly and making reluctant eye contact with the girl who'd slid over behind the bar, now leaning onto her elbow right next to where I sat.

"Thanks…what tipped you off, her accent or her dance routine?"

She laughed with a lilt, raising a crayoned-on eyebrow at me with a smile.

"Both, rally'…but guessin' by the way she's moving like that it's all fine every night, huh? Worth it in the 'und?"

My smile went flat-line as I stared blankly at the smiling bar-girl. Either she hadn't caught on we were related, who could blame her, or these Southerns are just freakin' sick…

Right as I was about to explain how we shared a few strands of DNA, I heard a loud splash from the dance floor behind me followed by a tap on my shoulder. I looked over my shoulder, twisting on my stool to see Kirby standing behind me in her black slack-shorts and tank top, her face just glowing from the adrenaline rush, showing all her teeth and her eyes twinkling in the neon flashed.

I then noticed her hair was hanging flat against the sides of her head and back, and her clothes were dripping as if she just took a shower in them. I slowly glanced up at the rafters, wondering why every night club had one of those water buckets in the ceiling for serious dancers. Oh, that and her outfit was now slightly see-through.

"…Well, I think these rookies have had enough. Ready to go, Cuz'?"

I continued staring up at the ceiling as I reached next to me, grabbed her jacket and tossed it at her. By the time I looked back down she had pulled my old jacket around her soaked torso and was pushing her way to the exit, signing every piece of paper handed to her with a tiny Sharpie that she always had tucked behind her ear and hidden in her hair. She's always been good with autographs, her signature isn't really legible but it looks nice next to her picture. I pulled my thinner jacket tighter around my shoulders as I thanked the bartender and walked off with Kirby as she fought the crowd outside.

By the time we were outside, both of us were slinging the leather jackets over out shoulders. It was Florida, I really should have switched stereotypes from biking badass to random, non-sweaty guy in breathable sleeveless shirt. What do bikers wear down here, leather bathing suits? A minute later and I was dovetailing past and around the few cars coasting by on the roads at this hour, heading towards the nearest lake and following the pier and watching the houses go by. My cousin, wringing out her clothes behind me on the bike after her little Flashdance-Finale, asked.

"Saw some _polluelos_ walk over to you…get any numbers?"

I would have rolled my eyes, but I was looking for Sam's house in the dark while riding a recreational vehicle with no air bags.

"Boxers don't do well in relationships, girls don't like to watch their guys get beat up, and guys don't like their training schedule messed up."

"…you're not a boxer anymore…get a new excuse."

I spotted a dirt path leading into a small patch of trees, adjusting to an easier gear and turning onto it.

"Fine. While all the other guys were learning how to run the bases, I was learning punch combinations."

That shut her up, and the bumpy ride up towards the currently dark yet gigantic house next to the lakefront went in silence. At night, you can't see what the house looks like except for a little space in the trees where the moon shines down on a little veranda. So when we dismounted, I led her through near total darkness up to the stairs to the door of the recently rebuilt mansion, banging the silver knocker a few times and squinting my eyes when the door opened to a brightly lit foyer. When my vision cleared, I saw my grandmother leaning against the old oak door and waving us in. As we stepped into the old-fashioned entry hall I saw her raise a purple eyebrow at my cousins' wet hair.

"…did you guys get caught in the rain?"

I set my jacket down on a wall-hook and kicked off my dirt-crusted shoes.

"…you ever watch 'Flashdance'?"

My grandmother just went blank before starting up again and just nodding, not saying anything as Kirby kicked off her sandals and admired the (…do I need to specify Gothic?) architecture of the main staircase. Sam recently bought this place for cheap, gutted it and rebuilt a house you'd expect a guy to get murdered in, and everyone's a suspect. Speaking of which, I've suspected for a while it's an exact replica of the game 'Clue'…I think it may have something to do with that giant deck of playing cards in the west wing that she says is modern art.

Sam flicked on the main light switch, sending the dark house into full visibility and this revealing all the dark-wood frames and paneling. She led us upstairs, past the pedestal-mounted statues of classic mythology figures. When Sam stopped and bent down to examine a shallow nick on the banister, Kirby leaned over the railing and patted a bronze statue of Anubis of the Damned on the head like it was a real dog.

When Sam started back up the steps, I noticed as usual she wore a knee-length skirt and a pop-cut little top despite her age. Actually, considering her being probably around fifty, she still looked _extremely_ young. Maybe she really was a witch. Or maybe her body doesn't have enough energy to age from all that dead grass she eats. In fact I noticed she had a thorn-patterned tattoo on her lower back as she asked without look at us. But seriously, how does a grandmother of three look great with a low-ride tattoo? Satanic pact?

"Your mom called me to brag about the filming. I just asked about what time you two disappeared."

Kirby glanced at me with wide eyes, surprised at Sam's foresight. I just shrugged and tilted my neck, telling her it's nothing new. She looked back at Sam's back and chirped.

"…yeah…so, ghost hunting paid for this place?"

I glared at Kirby behind my grandmothers back as we came off the stairs into a gigantic hallway lined wit old portraits. She just smiled back at me, not knowing about something called manners. But when Sam turned on one high heel and looked at us, her purple smirk didn't convey a sense of being offended.

"Actually, those little toothpicks in the sterile wrappers paid for it. Alan's great-great-grandfather invented the machine that does that, I get royalties for each one wrapped."

Kirb' whistled in admiration, causing my grandmother to once again surprise me by snickering a little and waving us into a lit room filled with easy chairs. I noted the walls were lined with shelves, which were filled with Egyptian artifacts ranging from Shabti' figures to a few mummified animals in glass cases in the corner. I always loved this room as a kid. And apparently, so did my cousin, she suddenly commented to Samantha that she liked how most of the Egyptian gods wore thongs. And my grandmother, who studied in Cairo and has a minor degree in Egyptian Sudy, just laughed.

Now, once in a while Sam laughs at my naiveté or other misfortunes. But somehow, Kirby makes her laugh without even trying. I'm not sure how, I think she conditions her hair with nitrous oxide or something. But if she really does shampoo with laughing gas, why don't I ever find anything funny? Have I built up a tolerance to it or something?

Soon enough and the three of us were seated around a table-sized Rosetta Stone replica, getting Sam up to date on recent supernatural affairs. Sam sat cross-legged in the overstuffed chair, nodding at the mention of every ghost she'd heard of or sometimes met before. By the time I got up to Walker, she had one hand on her chin and her purple eyes half-open in my direction. I figured she was just deep in thought, until I finished and without even taking a moment to digest all this she asked.

"…have you even gone on a date since you became a Halfa?"

…oh, that witch…I just covered my eyes with one hand, shaking my head down at my lap more in anguish than to answer her question, which the gesture did rather well sadly.

I heard Kirby ask as I held my eyes closed.

"Do you have a place I could dry my hair? I don't want to drip on your _silla_."

I uncovered my eyes and glanced up to find my grandmother staring at Kirby in plain confusion. I cleared my throat.

"…_silla_ means 'chair'…"

My grandmother gave me a tiny glance, nodding her head just barely enough to shake the top-knot of her ponytail before telling Kirby where to find a bathroom. After she crept out into the hallway like a main character in a horror movie, my grandmother let out a sigh of relief, abandoning her dignified cross-legged position for just slumping back in her chair.

"…Alan, I'm not exactly your great-granddad but for some reason languages never clicked with me."

I shrugged, sitting back upright and scratching my neck.

"Hey, I was raised speaking Spanish and English but I failed Spanish class. If you don't learn from a native, you're learning a different language entirely."

She nodded, regaining some composure. You see, she always has to have an aloof air going on. Rarely, if ever, does she break the Gothic act. This is why her finding my cousin funny is unusual. Even when she taught me how to read as a kid, she wasn't the loving grandmother type. She was just…Sam. Deep down I'd prefer it to an old drunk like on my mom's side. It's odd, but treating me like a favorite student instead of a grandson she's taught me more than my teachers ever did. Mostly because she made sure I grew up with common sense. She tried the same with my sisters, but my folks guarded them more closely then they did me.

Within seconds she had gone from a thankful friend to the seasoned teacher of all trades, taking out her violet-tinted eyeglasses and perching them on her nose so she could make out my features from a good seven feet away. I glanced down at my hands as she looked me over, you know by now I'm not into eye contact.

"You two seem attached at the…well, I'd say head but hers is off with Voyager 2 and yours is face down in the dirt."

I just shrugged, examining a discoloration on my finger from something on the bike's handlebars. I suddenly remembered our bags were still out with the bike. I couldn't retrieve them of course, because she kept talking.

"Seriously, I thought she just lived on the ranch with you. But every time I've seen you in the last month, she's been right there."

I sighed, leaning back and looking up at the oak ceiling tiles.

"…she just follows me around…I didn't exactly apply for a sidekick."

I could practically sense that Sam was looking at me like I'd said I can fly around like a Concorde. Wait…eh…screw it, she was looking at me like I was an idiot.

"…neither did that trainer of yours…"

If my eyes weren't already lazily focused on the ceiling, they would have snapped open. I didn't even look down at where she was sitting. Her comment just caught me in the kidney. It all came rushing at me, but even though I now knew exactly what she meant, she felt she had to explain.

"All those years Walt trained you, you were his shadow. Everywhere he went, you came with. He never brushed you off. He just let you tag along, and in turn taught you everything he knew."

I breathed deeply before finishing the thought for her, slamming my eyes closed and banging my head lightly against the back of the chair.

"…and she's doing the same thing…"

I slowly opened my eyes to find my grandmother just nodding slowly, more at my figuring it out than her own common sense.

"You're not dragging each other around. You're learning from each other."

…yeah, pretty mu…wait…WHAT!

"She was trying to get you out of your shell at first, just a cousin helping another out. Then she…saw a different side of you…"

I slowly nodded, not aware that I was looking her straight in the eye instead of at her carpeting.

"…she started following me to see some action."

"…you mean before she saw what it did to you."

My grandmother broke our eye lock to glance up and lightly blew a stray hair away from her face before glancing back towards me.

"I've talked to her about how you've been since Walt passed. Alan, you were out of it for a while. But now, you're more like your old self around her."

I finally broke the rare eye contact, shaking my head at her woven rug.

"…you can't be serious…"

"…when am I _not_ serious? Alan, you can't keep pushing everyone away."

Right as I snapped my head back up, eyes flaring, ready to finally stick up for myself Kirby walked in wrapping a black towel around her head like a turban. She stopped walking/wrapping when saw me sanding straight up in front of my chair, my eyes flaring bright green from the sudden emotional flare, and my grandmother sitting there calmly as if watching edible grass grow. She just glanced between he two of us a few times before rolling her emerald eyes and taking a seat on a glass case containing a mummified jackal.

"… you _Fentons _and your emotional spare tires_…_yeesh!"

Slowly, from out opposite positions my grandmother's and my own eyes slid back toward each other, locking eyes from across the table and watching each other raise an eyebrow at the same time, in the same manner. Okay, she may be high on veggies, but she's still my biological grandmother. Actually, her eating habits might explain why my father is an idiot…Wait…Jack-Fenton-Genes…Right…

The Next Day

My subconscious is smarter than I thought it was. Using Sam's place as a hideout was good. But the fact she's gone all day teaching classes, is a perk. I didn't realize this until I woke up on the couch of the seventh living room and realized I was in a huge mansion. Alone. No one else to bug me, Kirby was sleeping on the other side of the house and probably couldn't get through the maze of hallways. For the first time in a week, I could do whatever I wanted. No insane weight lifting routine. No ghosts to hunt down. No camera men to beat the crap out of for bugging my bathroom. What to do…

One Hour Later

"Four…whew…Five…argh…SIX!"

As I gritted my teeth and steadied my breathing, I heard footsteps coming from the doorway to the right. I heard a familiar voice yell.

"Alan? Are you bench-pressing furniture because you have nothing better to do? _Again_?"

…I was lying down flat on a sturdy metal coffee table, and balanced on my flexed fore-arms was a full-sized leather couch with a few chairs and a small statue stacked on it for extra weight.

"...you are, aren't you?"

Ten seconds later, the footsteps stopped and Kirby was standing in the doorway, looking with in disbelief at a completely normal living room, all furniture in place, and me just sitting there reading a magazine up side down and with veins popping out of my wrists. I glanced up from what I at the time thought was a readable magazine, cocking an eyebrow as if she'd interrupted my reading.

"…what?"

My cousin, dressed in one of my old shirts with her hair half-done in a ponytail, stared at the upside-down magazine.

"…you read _Cosmo_?"

…why did Sam even have that magazine in her house…

Four Peaceful, Uneventful Days Later. Like That Ever Lasts

Our time at Samantha's hollow abode passed quickly, and eventually my mom called me detailing how the filming was horrendous. And they'd left early, after only getting a small amount of footage. She was obviously distraught over the prospect of their documentary becoming mediocre. I didn't have the heart to tell her, but the last three documentaries they've done on us went straight to DVD. And straight to the bargain bin from there.

Let's cut to my rolling the bike down the cargo ramp of the jet while Kirby hugged the pilot goodbye. As she hopped onto the back-pad as I found the ignition switch, she commented.

"These last few days have been awesome! I mean…"

My hand froze as it went to flip the toggle. I slowly went to turn to look at her.

"…don't…say…"

She looked at me strangely, tilting her head like a cat watching an insurance commercial.

"…say what? I just meant…"

Before I could throw my hand over and cover her mouth with my palm, she got the sentence finished.

"…nothing weird happen-RRMMPH!"

Her eyes narrowed at me and I could feel her lips cursing me out in spanish behind he hand I'd clamped over her mouth. I went to explain, when my phone went off. I grabbed it off my belt, flipped it open and answered.

"…yeah?"

I gritted my teeth as Sherri's voice explained why she was calling. I loudly repeated her warning so my mute cousin could hear.

"I see…wait, how many ghost attacks today? Eight?"

I glared at Kirby, who went from furious to nervous, smiling weakly behind my palm and letting her eyebrows raise up in a universal 'Don't snap my neck like a saran-wrapped toothpick' message. I flipped my phone shut and let go of her mouth, wiping off my palm on my jeans.

"…Kirb', my life is like a poorly written sitcom…the minute some one mentions something of importance, irony kicks in and everyone starts screaming. Except there's no laugh track."

She forced a laugh, nervously as she rubbed her neck under her hair.

"Uh…well, what if I said 'Too bad an international cheerleading squad isn't parachuting down around your house!'?"

I just sighed and looked away, starting the bike and feeling it crack to life after the bumpy cargo ride.

"…I try that every few days…it never works."

The Next Day

My eyes shut on reflex as my back cracked into the brick wall I'd been flung against. As I bounced off the jagged bricks, flopping onto the tile floor like a rag doll as I tried to remember what hit me in the first place. So many bangs on the head and you start forgetting where you are. Never happened to me when I boxed. But I made up for it the moment I set foot in that old comic shop downtown. At least I think it was a comic shop.

As I lay there motionlessly on the ground, my blood-tipped ears picked up a distorted perception of what was going on. My eyes were nearly swollen shut, so the only thing on my mind besides pain was this sound that was barreling at my from above. Laughter. Deep, echoing laughter that belonged in a cartoon or cheap movie. I'm not trying to be funny, it's hard to be funny with three crushed ribs.

The laughing came closer, accompanied by rumbling footsteps toward where I lay …well, I'd say defeated, but it looked more like there should have been a chalk line around my arms and legs. By the time he was standing right over me I managed to pull my face off the concrete and pry my eyes up to see the feet of the…thing that had just beaten me into a neon green bloody pulp. It looked like the bad guy from a video game. No clothes, no external features, just a muscle bound guy no pupils and devil horns standing about eight feet tall. And he was completely two-dimensional, his outline was a bold green as he moved like a cartoon stuck against a photograph. But he was solid enough to beat me, I don't understand it either.

I didn't even go to roll out of the way as I heard him grunt and raised that axe-thing he'd been carrying, I just spat out a drop of green blood and waited for it. I watched the muscles of his gray-ink feet flex, right before they were enveloped in bright green light. When I blinked, I found myself looking not at the feet of the beast that was going to kill me, but at the bent pages of a comic book that had just flopped onto the floor where he'd been standing.

I squinted my eyes painfully, probably squeezing off some blood as I looked at the glossy cover. Standing atop a pile of burning zombies was a tiny, two dimensional version of the hell-thing I'd been fighting for close to an hour. I glanced up at the Gothic title font.

"…Zandor The Immortal…?"

I didn't even notice a tooth when it fell out of my mouth as I read the title aloud. I just stared in disbelief at the strange disappearance of the monster, I was about to see if my legs worked when I heard a squeaky voice growl from behind one of the overturned shelves, the fight had totaled the rather large comic book shop and its contents.

"Issue 247 alternate cover edition…wherein he obtains the Gauntlet of Absolute and combines it with the power of Satan's Thorns. And on page 33 the typist messed up the word 'loins', makes this issue worth 34.70 more on the right market."

I looked around through swelling eyelids, looking for the source of the voice. Out of my tinted vision I saw some one step out from behind a shelf, just a green outline bouncing into my view. I heard that scratchy voice emanate from it.

"And he's a _minor_ demon in this timeline…you couldn't even break through his anti-jobber aura!"

As I struggled to focus my eyes on the rotund green shape, trying to make out what it was from behind the blood in my eyes. It changed directions and started moving towards the door.

"You're pathetic."

With that the wide shape moved out the smashed wall of the comic shop, I squeezed one of my eyes shut and when I opened it I caught a glimpse of a greasy tee shirt displaying a knockoff superhero retreating into the street. A nerd. I'd been beaten bloody by a dead nerd who brought comic characters to life. And by a supporting character. No, he didn't send out the Joker or Bane or any of the cool villains, he sent out some poorly written demonic badass.

I slowly pushed myself off my stomach, eventually and painfully crunching upright and pulling myself to my feet on a shelf before limping out to the alley behind the shop and collapsing behind a dumpster, going human out of exhaustion as I pulled out my phone. I hit the speed dial as I wiped the now crimson fluid off my face, I'd been battered enough that all my wounds didn't heal when I shifted. And judging by the mess of blood I saw on my palm as Kirby answered her extension back home, he must have cut a few veins.

Forty Minutes Later

I had an arm around her for support as Kirby helped me limp down the short hallway into her room, easing me down onto her couch before running off to her bathroom and returning with a wet washcloth, all the while gasping.

"_¡Su cara apenas se cubre en sangre!"_

She started dabbing away the small rivers of the stuff running down from my forehead, where I hit the wall the hardest. I winced as the rough cloth brushed an open cut, weakly reaching up and grabbing her wrist.

"Kirb'…I think you should give me a ride into town…"

Her frantic eyes calmed slightly, thinking to herself as she withdrew the cloth.

"…um…about that…"

I would have raised my eyebrow, but it would have pulled more cuts open. She wrapped some of her hair around her thumb as she looked up at her ceiling and said in a casual way.

"Your mom…kind of mentioned how Mr. Masters made a donation to the local emergency room after that one camera guy broke his thumb and had to get it reset there…"

I just sighed, slumping forward and placing my palms over my face, not caring how the cuts, gashes and bruises burned when touched.

"…great. A Fenton shows up like this, he'll be all over me."

I felt more blood coat my hands as I heard her ask.

"Well…what about other hospitals?"

I shook my head, sending a sharp sensation through my neck from when he held me by the throat.

"…I'd lose too much blood on the way over…"

I dropped my hands, looking at the fresh layer of red as I wondered how I could stop the bleeding. I suddenly shut my eyes as an image flashed through my mind. A man leaning down close to my damaged brow growling to himself as I slumped onto the stool with my gloves hanging off the sides. I suddenly heard Walt's ringside mantra echo through my blood-filled ears.

"…work _with_ the blood, don't just cover it up…"

"…_¿El infierno"_

I snapped my eyes open, seeing my cousin sitting on the table across from me and wondering what I'd just muttered like a prayer.

"Kirb'. Go into my room and look under my bed close to the wall. There's an old leather bag, bring it to me."

She nodded quickly and ran off down the hall, coming back probably a few seconds later holding the small suede case by the handle as she set it down on the table. She unzipped the lid and lifted the lid, thinking it was a first aid kit. But the moment she saw the contents she stood straight up and backed away a few steps, shaking her head as she stared at the organized objects in the case.

"….oh no…Alan, I can't…"

I cut her off, pulling the case across the table towards me as I checked to see if it was all there.

"…you don't have to. I watched him do it for years. Bring me a mirror."

My cousin just stared at me in disbelief, not moving to get the stand-alone mirror from her bathroom.

"Cuz'…there is no freakin' way I'm going to let you…"

"…if I don't do something about my face I'm going to lose too much blood. Get the mirror."

She went pale under her tan as she slowly stepped towards the bathroom, breaking into a slow walk before finally getting the mirror and setting it down on the table in front of me before walking out and leaving me alone with it. She never even like me telling stories about this kind of thing, I can't imagine her wanting to watch.

I looked down into the mirror and got a good look at my face, the area that took the most damage unfortunately. This ghost healing thing seems to work from the torso out, my ribs had already started to reset and my shoulders were back in their sockets. But my face hadn't even started to pull itself back together. My eyes were starting to swell shut from the general beating. My mouth lips were cut in three places from my teeth. My nose thankfully wasn't broken, just bleeding and not showing any signs of stopping. My cheeks and forehead? Mostly deep gashes over developing bruises. I used the damp cloth to wipe away most of the blood on the bruised areas, getting a good look at everything before looking over at the case from under my bed.

The case itself has seen a few battles. The strap was nearly falling off from being toted around everywhere, and the light leather material showed signs of stains. But inside the square little pack, was a little divider rack full of objects that had been carefully packed on a regular basis. Every little container was full of swabs, cotton, tape, an empty ice pack, a piece of metal that is put in a cooler to freeze it, and as I reached into a hidden pocket in the lid I felt the other object was still there. I unzipped the hidden zipper and pulled out something I just had to hold in my hand and look at, remembering everything about it.

It was a knife. Simple as that. A small but large-bladed folding buck-knife with a black metal handle with some rubber still left on the grip. The blade showed no signs of rust despite its age. In fact the blade was sharpened as if to split hairs, and the steel showed signs of having been sterilized before being put in the air-tight bag. That's Walt. Hideously old fashioned and barbaric, but sane enough to know what he's doing. Most other 'cut-men' used disposable scalpels on boxers between rounds. But Walt always used this knife when I needed a cut. Only me, never on any other fighter of his for health reasons. Want to know what's so unusual? This thing never left a scar on me. Walt had hands that Jazz Fenton would envy.

I unfolded the blade, checking three times for any signs of contamination before looking closely in the mirror, focusing through blood-curtained eyes at the worst laceration below my right eye. I glanced at the knife, realizing I'd have to cut away a piece of debris that was caught in the cut. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second, replaying another one of Walt's raspy mantras.

"…_don't cut against the grain, so to speak…you're not cutting a tree!"_

I opened my eyes, focused on the cut and went to work. Without numbing the area, or even trying to relieve the pain that'd been tearing through me for close to an hour. I'm going to spare you the details of treating my own injuries while feeling the pain of both them and the tools that helped fight them back. I'm guessing it took an hour and a half, I lost track of the time. If I didn't focus completely on my task, or if I let the pain get to me I knew I'd wake up in the emergency room with Vlad standing over me.

When I finally stepped out of Kirby's room, holding the wall for support but feeling better since the blood loss stopped. My now clear eyes looked down and saw her sitting against the wall outside her door, rubbing her temples to fight off a nervous headache. She glanced up and did a double take, standing straight up and nearly tangling her legs in the process.

A second later and once again her face was an inch away from mine. She stared in shock at the now nearly hidden gashes that I'd mended rather nicely. Then she glanced at the drained bruises that were gone from my semi-pale profile. And finally, she noticed the worst gash under my right eye was now a line of nearly invisible thread from a sterile spool. It pays to know how to sew. I'd gone from a mess of blood and bruises to…well, my usual self if not a bit paler.

"…you…look great…compared to just now, I mean. Whoa…"

She leaned back in place, stretching her neck back for a better view while her toes still touched mine.

"Did you do like first aid in school? Or pick up a Medical Degree online?"

I smiled weakly, not minding the slight pain in my chin.

"…nah, I just had a good trainer. Mind bringing me something to eat so I don't pass out?"

She blinked, wondering why a guy who practically came back from being a carved turkey could still need help. A second later and she was nothing but a patter of thumps going down the stairs. I limped into my room and sat down at my desk, looking in the reflection of my computer monitor at my repaired face. It'd be back to normal within a day, I trusted my ghost genes that much at least. But I had to give myself minimal credit for this.

I wondered what Walt would have said if he heard wherever he is that his old pug actually remembered all he grumbled about fixing cuts. He'd probably say it was about time, he always had to fix my brow every few fights because it's mostly scar tissue. Well, he'd say it with a smile but that's what I know he'd say.

A minute later Kirby walked in and set down a tray of foods that all had a copyright sign on the end of their name. But instead of commenting I'm more careful about what I eat, I just inhaled whatever the heck was in those bags to keep myself conscious. By the time the last empty bag hit the tray, my cousin was sitting on my desk just staring curiously down at me. I glanced sideways and raised a stitched eyebrow. She suddenly looked away and started backing towards my doorway.

"Um…I'll be in the barn…"

I can't say it surprised me when she ran down the steps and a second later from my window I watched her run into the barn. A few seconds later, and I heard the sounds of a guitar quickly being tuned in the loft. I just sighed and turned back to my blank computer. That girl gets inspired like this every once in a while. She'll be in there until midnight. I'm not going to ask what set it off this time, probably some one-winged fly that was buzzing behind my chair or something.

I spent the next couple hours watching my old fight tapes. This whole thing had me missing Walt all over again. As I got to a match against a slugger who later failed a steroid test, right after the match, the phone rang. I snatched it off the cradle and answered, still watching the fight as if I was reliving it.

"Hello?"

Kerri said on the other end.

"Alan, mom told me to call you and tell you we left this morning to talk to Mr. Masters about that crappy documentary. Sorry not to leave a note."

…Kerri always remembers to call people six to seven hours after you remind her to. She's the twin that didn't get much gray matter when the egg split. On the other hand, Sherri can't figure out how to cook something without something imploding in on itself.

"…'Kay. Anything else?"

She suddenly remembered something else. She always did, that's why you have to ask.

"OH! And Dad told me to tell you Mr. Masters is throwing a party downtown. We're all going, lot of photographers coming. Just a warning, it's a costume party. Masks required. Bye!"

And she left my with a beeping phone in my hand, and a blank expression on my face as the words sunk in. Well, this could be fun. Kirby has two trunks full of costumes from her mom's productions. Maybe if this face thing doesn't heal faster enough I could go as the Phantom like that time at the opera house.

I clicked the cordless phone off as I considered Vlad's reaction to seeing a guy dressed as the Phantom of the Opera who looks like Danny. I chuckled at what I imagined his reaction would be, before my voice broke in mid-laugh and I just stared into thin air. I pictured the mask hanging on Kirby's wall, and it all went from there. In the next ten minutes, don't ask me how, I came upon an idea that would either get me killed…or it'd get me a good dash ahead of Lord Plasmius…

I would have worked out more possibilities and maybe refined my plan a bit more, but Kirby was playing a rather rough-cut tune out in the barn through her loudest amp. When she can't think of a note or rhyme, she makes it so the rest of us can't hear _ourselves_ think.

You see what happens when you mention something important that isn't happening? You see? What next, some hip new character is going to pop up in the later seasons to try and attract a newer audience because the other characters are boring or not young kids anymore?

…Dang it, Kirby…

Author's Note

The front half is more to further explain why Kirby and Alan are the way they are. You may also notice that Sam's hinting at Kirby rubbing off on Alan. If you were hoping to read about the filming of a pointless documentary, you don't how how my mind works. That thing about Alan and the corner-kit his trainer left him after he died is a very heavy scene, though. Consider that Alan had the focus and ability to pull that off in excrucating pain. I based it on both classic scenes involving symbolism of that kind, and the time I was in an accident and walked into a hospital with similar facial injuries.The emergency room, wasn't exactly top notch, they let me sit out there bleeding in the lobby while that secretary read a magazine. I actually took a corner kit from my bag, I was working at a boxing club at the time, and had to treat myself in the bathroom. Yes, it hurt. I heard later that the place was sued and closed because of a similar case to mine where a guy was in worse condition. This is one of the only instances where I reflect my characters off myself. If you need to put yourself in your own story for it to work, you're not a writer. The only things I share with Alan are the boxing lifestyle and the fear of Ewoks. And yes, Alan actually lost to a dead nerd with comic book summoning powers. Danny would have had the guy down in a quarter of an episode.


	17. Chapter 17

DISCLAIMER: See previous entires

GOOD NEWS: Less Alan, More Phantom.

"…how do you breathe in that thing?"

She just looked at me through her feathered mask, tilting her head and asking what I meant. We were sitting on the end seat of a rented limousine, my sisters and parents were on the far end making business calls as they pulled on their still tagged costumes and masks. Meanwhile, my cousin and I had already gotten dressed at the house before the limo even pulled up.

I was strapped into an old fashioned black shirt with ruffled sleeves and a laced chest, baggy pants and polished boots that went up to mid-ankle. All in black, complimented by a bandana with two eye slits pulled over my head. Where did this costume come from? Ask the guy who gave Kirby the trunk it came in, I thought it looked cool. It made me look like your basic guy dressed in black with a mask, I'd blend in easily.

But apparently blending into a crowd of snobs in unoriginal costumes wasn't on Kirby's agenda. I had just asked how she could breathe through an ancient vest thing she had my sisters help her into before we left, which was covered by a very complex, multi-layer 18th century party gown with the sides of the floor-level skirt flared out to her sides while her constricted middle amplified her hip width and other features.

Her dress itself was a flare of pink, white and orange with dark tan showing wherever her contrasting skin was uncovered. Her hair had been tied under an orange-feathered headdress with a few heavily curled locks draping down around her face. Speaking of which, stuck onto her profile was a pink feather-plastered mask that made her look like an exotic, green eyed bird. As I took in all these details for the fifth time out of boredom, she kept looking at me with a tilted head, tapping a high-heeled foot against the car's carpeting before she snapped a white-gloved finger and remarked.

"Oh! You mean the corset? I wore one of these things for about four hours twice a week, for a year. You get used to it."

I raised an eyebrow, which no one saw because of my bandana/mask.

"…and you say _I_ need a hobby…"

She reached one hand over and rapped me on the leg with her velvet-covered knuckles, rolling her eyes from behind the mask.

"For your information, 'Don Diego', I did a 'Phantom' production on the side when I was just getting out of high school. I started out helping my mom with the movements, got hooked."

I watched my parents argue over who gets which mask as my sisters debated who wore the red costume and who the green.

"…so that's where you stole those props from…'Lemme guess, you had the lead."

I heard her scoff in a …unusual accent. Sounded less Spanish and more French. As I went to ask I was distracted as the tinted windows caught side of a crowded street up ahead, probably where the party was. I glanced ahead and glared at my family's not being prepared, shaking my head and turning to my over-dressed cousin as she explained.

"Me? Christine? I'd rather play the page boy. I was Carlotta."

I started through my cloth mask as she grinned from under her mask, glowing over her role. I cleared my throat.

"…and that is?"

She sighed, still smiling to herself like a queen as she turned to look out the window.

"…_Nunca mente_…"

I took her advice and looked out my window at the car-loaded block outside the entrance to an old hotel. Bustling on the sidewalks was a crowd of people wearing old-fashioned costumes, most of them chattering away on high-end cell phones. I chuckled at a man dressed as the Grim Reaper tapping away on a Blackberry device with two skeletal thumbs.

As the valet waved us to the curb I saw the other Fentons just barely getting their costumes on as the red-vested lad went to open the door Kirby was leaning against. The sound-proofed haven of the car interior was broken when the door clicked open and Kirb' eased herself onto the sidewalk, thanking the valet for his help as I slipped out next to her, adjusting the neck of my shirt as the sound of four people scrambling to get across a crowded limo caused the valet to snicker. My cousin and I quickly entered the crowd outside the main doors, disappearing into the scenery as my family posed for pictures outside the car.

They were wearing outfits very similar to their ghost fighting suits, except with fringe all over and little colored eye-masks. They looked like the Super Brady Bunch went back in time to do musical numbers about France being fun. I could hear a few masked CEOs and other investors snickering or grumbling about the attire of the VIP guests. It could have been worse. They forgot to wear pictures of their faces on their chests like last time.

In addition to the custom-fringed red, green, blue and darker blue outfits they'd ordered for themselves, my parents had also offered that I could wear a white one and Kirby a black one, showing that we're _with_ the Fentons, but not really Fentons. I politely declined. Kirby just spat in their coffee pot this morning. My mother commented briefly on the aftertaste, my father on the other hand said his mom used to make it the same way. I never mentioned Sam hated cooking, did I?

When we finally navigated the crowd into the doors and found ourselves in a multi-floor ballroom complete with grand staircases and balcony hallways, we'd started to lose focus on each other. Kirby was looking around like a kid in a candy shop, the way she kept saying how beautiful everything was. I, on the other hand scanned every balcony and refreshment table for anyone who even had the same build as Vlad.

I didn't notice it until later but we actually went separate ways early on. She lifted her skirt so she could move her feet and bustled off to the bar while I saw a black outline slink by on a balcony and I started up the stairs after it. I didn't see her again until we left the party, I heard from some my sisters they saw her in a crowd of old divorced guys. I hadn't actually told her what I was planning on doing, so her time at the party could have been worse.

I sidled past several bulky costumes going down the steps as I kept my cloth-framed eyes on the square-set shadow retreating along the wall-hugging balcony towards a shadowed crevice on the far side. I watched the squared torso with the tiny head stuck on top slump through the doorway and out of view for the guests in the main chamber. I stepped off the stairs and followed the same hallway he had, stopping before I got to the rounded doorway, listening for what was inside.

"…and she whacked him with a four iron!"

I shot my back against the wall, leaning casually and patting my self over as if looking for a lighter as two men dressed as a fish and a bear stepped out and went off down the steps chatting about female golfers.

This eased my mind enough to sidle over and look into the dark entryway, seeing not a criminal hideout but an artfully darkened pool room full of costumed guests racking up straight points while their wives and mistresses mingled outside. I scanned the large room, catching sight of several large men in identical suits congregating in the corner. I recognized the closest one to the door as the one I'd followed in, judging by the pale complexion that in this lighting didn't seem unusual, these were more of Vlad's little helpers.

I stepped out of the light of the hanging pool-lamps, letting my outfit blend in as I counted six of the lugs as they played a rock-paper-scissors tournament. I reached up and pulled my mask tighter over my nose before standing up straight and swaggering over to where they held a semi-final rock vs rock match.

"Hey, you guys work for Mr. Masters right?"

Four of them turned to look at me with crossed arms the size of small hams. I noticed they were wearing those sunglasses like last time, but due to either the poor lighting in here or the fact I was human at the time, they didn't pick up on my motives.

"…who wantsta' know?"

I shrugged, flicking my thumb towards the entrance to the pool hall, out towards the brightly lit ball room.

"Some people said they saw some valets hanging around your boss's car. If I were you I'd go straighten things out before they lose the slips in a street race."

They looked at each other for a few seconds, nodding a few times before thanking me and stampeding out of the hall towards the main entrance, cracking golf-ball sized knuckles as they did so. I crept out of the dark hall and watched them push through he crowd politely and exit from the balcony. The moment they were gone I walked back down the cut-away hallway and ducked into a tastefully labeled bathroom. I checked the bottom of the stalls and even checked for cameras before stepping into a stall and locking it behind me.

A minute later I stepped back out, running my fingers through my overgrown silver hair and pressing the plaster mask firmly against the side of my face to make the adhesive take. In the mirror above the French sinks I caught sight of myself and wished I'd blend in better. As you know, my ghost form is pretty constant. When I shifted my desperado outfit had been replaced by my usual black pants, gray shirt and of course the jacket. So, how did this qualify as a costume? I slapped on that opera mask to make it look like an updated Phantom of the Opera. Well, actually I looked more like a biker who passed through Mardi Gras and fell asleep on a bench. I would have just put a paper bag over my head, but that's actually a trademarked superhero logo.

I gave my hair one last hand-swipe, glaring at the mirror as my bangs defiantly flopped right back over my forehead and eyebrows. I could take on a guy twice my weight class, and have before. I can take on the undead and emotionally unstable. I can take on a pack of Latin relatives when the chicken platter is uncovered. But my hair has beaten me down every day of my life with an undefeated record.

I cursed in Spanish at my striking silver, but still my old hair as I turned away from the sink and started walking towards the door, pulling a pair of black gloves out of my jacket pocket and pulling them on before turning the knob and stepping out into the music-filled chamber and bouncing down the steps behind a woman in a two-story wig, looking both ways with some difficulty.

This mask looks intimidating and hides my face well, but I can't glance around without turning my head like I usually can, the ivory is a bit thick to see past my nose in one eye. So I had to settle for casually scanning the room as if searching for my better half or a business partner, much like every other man in the building was. Great costumes, dead party.

I noticed along the refreshment tables there stood a group of younger-looking women clumped around a punch bowl that, judging by the way they were going through glasses, must be laced with expensive alcohol. Usually I'd pass over a group like this, even though their costumes were…well, it was obvious they all weren't married. I'd go into detail, but there wasn't that much fabric to describe. And the one on the far right should get that looked at.

The moment I laid eyes on them I noticed one of the taller girls pulling her dyed hair up into a tiny ponytail and flashing her friends a canary-eating grin as she gave her shorter friend an exaggerated wink. I snapped my fingers, walking through the hardly-moving crowd and stopping a few feet short of the little group, lightly clearing my throat. All five masked faces turned to look at me, the center girl still impersonating the host.

"Pardon my interrupting…I just noticed you did a perfect Vlad Masters Junior and figured you ladies would know where he's hiding."

I blushed behind my mask and my bronzed tan as they broke into little smirks and the taller one tilted her bright green haired head, looking me over as I promised myself this was just tracking. The green haired woman remarked from behind a green-dyed mask made to look like a flower.

"…well…if you really need to know, I think I saw the pig going in that saloon thing next to the bandstand. Why's a little gentleman like you looking for a scumbag like him?"

Her friends looked at her in surprise and giggled at her honesty. They went silent in attention as I said.

"I'm just looking for a better job, figured he'd be dumb enough to hire me. Thanks for your help, and have a nice evening."

They waved off my thanks as I desperately sidled away from their smiles.

"No problem. Love the costume!"

I nodded in thanks before just spinning on my heel and shuffling off into the crowd towards where the music was coming from. I managed to stop blushing along the way, thankfully. I'm not sure which is worse, girls coming onto me in clubs or more refined women calling me a true gentleman at parties. As the tuxedo-clad and also masked band came into sight, my shoulders spread themselves and my jaw-line went square as I regained my composure. At least Vlad was still very, very male. And not a pretty one at that.

I got up to the edge of the low stage, scanning the walls around the small and unused dance floor and seeing a doorway off to the side with two swinging partitions like an Old West film. Yep, that there is a saloon. Trust me. After Spectra had me doubting my sexuality I started watching Eastwood films to convince myself I was straight. Sure, it's only a shallow cover-up and barely helps my emotional stability but I can really make my voice sound like Clint now. I use it to scare off telemarketers.

Speaking of Mr. Eastwood, if he saw the inside of this little bar as I pushed through the doors he would have sued the guy who built it. This little hotel bar or wherever this party was being held, had made this room look exactly like a saloon. Dusty-looking tables scattered around with cards spread around. Fully stocked bar with glasses stacked on the wall behind it. A female bartender in a horrendous showgirl dress gritting her teeth to splinters as she slid drinks down the strip. I raised a silver eyebrow as I noticed most of the party-goers in here were older men dressed in cowboy outfits. Note to self. Stop watching Clint Eastwood movies after age nineteen.

I walked over to the loaded bar, looking in turn at each old coot dressed in spurs and cuffs with of course the ten gallon hat in various colors. I managed not to laugh as I noticed they all wore Lone Ranger style masks under their hat brim.

I let my eyes lock onto a fellow slouched over the center stool wearing a white outfit that just glowed with newness. Spotless white leather boots, pants, shirt and jacket that smelled like expensive bleach, and a white mask and hat. See, this is what happens when you don't raise your kid right, they grow up into this guy. He was smirking around at the other cowboys with a perfect jaw-line and bleached teeth. I was surprised to see the other men were nodding and agreeing with everything he said. If it weren't for the black ponytail coming out the back of his hat, this would be my only give away to his being Lord Plasmius.

No one noticed that a Broadway character had just walked into the Bonanza reunion. I stepped up behind the line of sagging backs and tilted hats and picked up on the conversation, crossing my arms over my jacket. The host of this pathetic party said in a falsetto Texas accent.

"Yep'…thirty nine years ago tonight."

A man in a tanned outfit asked.

"…Sir, you threw a party on the anniversary of a guy's death…did you put that on the invitation?"

A few men laughed, their ham-bone boss chuckled and went on in that stupid accent.

"Nope…just a personal celebration a' sorts…"

Without warning them of my presence, I stated in a voice Eastwood would have nodded at.

"In that case, I chose one heck of a party to crash…"

The six heads spun over their shoulders, squinting under those ridiculous hats to get a good look at me. Their boss, however, did it slowly and dramatically to keep his airs. But the moment he saw me standing there staring at him from behind my mask, his grin slowly fell along with his entire jaw, and his blue eyes widened from behind the white mask. We locked stares, my razor-edged green one on his unbelieving blue pair. I heard a sharp tinkling sound as he crushed his shot glass without knowing it, the vodka inside it staining his white glove as his Western comrades looked between us in confusion.

I stood right where I was, not moving and not breaking eye contact. After about ten seconds the white-clad mastermind muttered in his normal voice, the accent long forgotten.

"Guys…I'm going to need a minute…"

I'm not sure who asked, neither of us was going to take their eyes off the other.

"What? Who the hell is this…"

His pupils didn't move, but I heard him bark.

"...everyone…_OUT! NOW!"_

I heard several chairs shove away and a bar-hinge swing open as everyone, including the poor woman behind the bar, scrambled out before they lost their jobs and their family farms to boot. When the doors stopped swinging, the man in white dropped the shards of his glass on the bar top and slowly stood up to his full height, about six foot and a piece in those boots. He took one step toward me, tilting his hat up as we continued the stare-down. His pupils ovulated as he noticed I stood a good inch taller than him, even in his heeled boots.

I'm not sure what he saw in me at that time. The mask and my hair did a good job hiding most of my face, and making my eyes stand out. I knew the only way he could tell I was the real thing was the eyes. Always the eyes. As he narrowed his blue ones at me, I felt mine flare slightly, probably glowing a bit from behind the mask.

"Well…I shouldn't have fired my recon sources after all, you are indeed back…"

I saw him smile, feigning calmness. I glared back.

"…like you said…thirty nine years tonight…"

He kept his casual air, despite the fact both of us would kill the other without an afterthought.

"I had my sources look for you after years I sealed the portal…I knew you'd be back. You were never easy to kill, even as a human…"

I managed not to let my face move as he said the word 'portal'. I decided to save that bit of information for later, now for the task at hand. I finally broke the eye contact, tilting my head and smirking slightly. He recoiled slightly, but quickly caught himself and resumed a similar confident posture. Not easy to do, dressed as a sheriff. But his grin became more and more of a lie as I snapped.

"You didn't kill me. You made me more powerful than you'll ever be."

He didn't even flinch, he just rolled his pure blue eyes up at his hat brim and shook his head. But when they rolled back down at me I clearly saw his irises had dilated. I bet his pulse just jumped eight beats, too. He's a good liar, but he's still human.

"_Right_… I see you hit a late growth spurt…probably stuffed some cardboard in your shoes and padded out that jacket. You look more like your father. Just a big muscle head with his gray matter in his biceps."

The eyebrow hidden behind the mask raised, more at his sill hating Jack after all these years than him implying I stuffed my jacket.

"Speaking of worthless muscle, where are your henchmen? You've been tapping that hidden button on your belt for a minute now, and I'm not seeing any security."

He kept smiling, he always did, but he paled slightly as he realized I had noticed his 'secret' maneuver. He stopped tapping his belt, letting his him arm swing out from behind his back slowly, pretending that didn't happen. I countered.

"That's right. My eyes actually work. Speaking of which, what happened to yours? Word on the obituaries is that you're a real Stevie Wonder in ghost form. What happened, forget your Oakley's at the beach?"

His grin tightened, and his eyes showed fuming hatred at my mention of his obvious but guarded weakness. He growled.

"I should crush you like a…!"

I didn't bat an eye, smirking wider.

"Then why haven't you?"

He froze in place, with one arm raised and a finger pointed at my throat, his grin now a grimace as veins appeared along his face. As he ground his teeth for an excuse I snapped my finger and let my face perk up like I remembered where I hid my magazine stash.

"Oh! I remember, because if you do anything even remotely out of character the entire business community will hear about it from those poor people in the costumes, and you'll have to fake your death and start over to shake your reputation as a freak. Again, right? What would the tabloids say, 'Like Father, Like Son'?"

I watched with slight amusement as his eyes widened at the mention of why he became his own heir. He slowly lowered the accusing hand. I nearly had my guard down when he suddenly demanded, sending me back a half inch.

"Where did the portal go? Tell me and I won't…!"

"You won't ask me to leave?"

He glanced around, making sure no one was around before he relaxed and his eyes flared red.

"I have the connections to have you dead by sunrise…! Not a trace left for the police…I've done it before!"

I nearly laughed at his threat.

"I'm quite aware…except this time it backfired."

He scoffed slamming his feet closer to me, suddenly his masked face was an inch from mine, fuming from the nostrils.

"Backfired!"

I nodded, casually raising an arm and shoving him way with one wrist as if he was a door. He stumbled back at the sudden movement, but kept his eyes locked on me as he demanded to know what I was getting at. I dropped my hands into my pockets, shrugging.

"…think about it…I'm legally dead. No relatives or friends left. I don't exist. You on the other hand, have a global enterprise and a reputation to uphold."

I watched his eyes fill with rage, glowing red from behind the white mask but I noticed his hands start twitching as he caught on to my position on the chessboard.

"You have more than I can ever dream of. That means I can take away more than you ever could from me."

His eyes faded back to blue and white, his shoulders going limp as he stared in disbelief at what I was rattling off like a dinner menu.

"…I have nothing left to lose…all I have left is taking you down."

I stepped forward, leaning down so my mask was an inch from his shocked face. I dropped my tone and growled, finally showing some emotion.

"…your days are numbered, Plasmius. I'm back. And I'm not going anywhere."

I winked one glowing eye, letting them fade back to normal green as I turned away from the stunned millionaire, walking towards the door without a word of parting. Suddenly I stopped in mid step, spinning back on my heel and raising one finger as I remembered something.

"Oh, one more thing…"

His pale, blank profile suddenly burned into an enraged grimace.

"…what now! What next, my car is being tow…"

He never finished his sentence. Right as he went to say 'towed', his eyes shot open he saw a black fist fly out of thin air, straight into his jaw. There was a sickening crack as my left fist landed into his chiseled chin, snapping his head back as the sloping impact sent him flying backwards right over the bar and crashing with a vertical flop as he shattered the mirrored wall and the glasses in front of it, slamming against the mirror like a splattered fly with all his limbs spread out and his eyes shut in pain. He instantly bounced off the cracked wall and flopped lifelessly onto the floor behind the bar, out of sight. I blew on the back of my left hand, smoothing out the black glove covering it.

"That was for looking at my grand-daughter. They're called breasts, if you can't stop looking at them just get your own."

With that I gave the seemingly abandoned bar a two-finger salute and turned to walk out, whistling a tune as I pushed out of the swinging doors and made a beeline for the bathroom. I walked out a few minutes later, whistling the same tune and noticing everyone was finishing their drinks, taking off their masks and bustling for the exit. The party was ending out of pure boredom. I don't think anyone knew the host just got left-hooked over the bar.

I followed the slow-moving and sweat-stained crowd out into the sidewalk, waiting for a valet to pull up the white stretch and find the rest of my party. I felt my pockets for my phone to see if anyone brought theirs and left it on, when I heard a walkie-talkie click up behind and froze with my hand on my leg. I slowly let out a breath as two goons the size of small pick-ups stepped into my peripheral vision on both sides. They crossed their arms as one walked along and stood in front of me, looking down at me through his sunglasses.

"Yo'…we're lookin' for a little punk with white hair, weird eyes and a white mask…he hurt our boss real bad, you see him?"

I clicked my tongue, reaching up and scratching my nose underneath my black bandana mask and looking up at my forehead as if in though. I hen snapped my fingers and said.

"Oh! That guy? Leather jacket, probably on steroids? Yeah, I saw him hanging around Mr. Master's car. Didn't you guys see him?"

They looked at each other, pulling down their shades to reveal beady little eyes set on their gray faces before the leader nodded down at me.

"Thanks. We'll get him this time, boys…"

They nodded in thanks before jogging/stomping off down the blocks. The one in the rear stopped next to me, pointing at my head with a hot dog sized index finger.

"Hey, this is a no smoking area…"

I slowly looked down and saw a wisp of bright blue smoke ebbing out from the corner of my lip.

"Um…yeah, I've been meaning to get a patch or something…"

He nodded and ran off to catch up with the other goons, leaning me alone on the sidewalk in my black desperado outfit. Wait, I forgot to mention I changed back in the bathroom didn't I? Sorry for adding so much drama to that, I'm just forgetful sometimes. I bet I even forgot to tell you about that one thing with the groundhog. Well, all in good time, I spotted a rainbow of jumpsuits filing into a white limousine and jogged up to get in with them. I later found out Kirby had snuck off to the car early and stayed there, those business men in there had given her six hotel room numbers too many.

Maybe this temper is genetic.

The Next Day

"…grand-daughter!"

I squinted at the diagram notes as Kirby laughed so hard she nearly fell out of the loft, rolling around at my referring to her as Danny's blood relative. I was sitting on a table in the barn, sitting cross-legged and flipping through Tucker's notebook on my lap and looking for any mention of portals. I'd just given my cousin a briefing of last night. As she recovered from her hyena episode, ten minutes later, she called down.

"You know we only share one grandparent, right? We're like cousins by a thread."

I was in the middle of doing a T-chart comparing portal types, but her little trivia bit made me drop my pen and look up as she lay down along the edge of the loft, dangling on arm down over the drop and stretching her toes as she lay on her stomach.

"…our mothers have the same parents…what are you talking about?"

She kept swinging her arm and tapping her sandaled feet together as she casually mentioned.

"We just share the same grandmother. My mom told me around the time I had to move out here."

I narrowed one eye and tilted my head up at her as she reclined along the wooden ledge like a bored cat.

"…I knew she wasn't the best wife…so, your mom…?"

She nodded slowly, turning her head and looking at me with two appropriately cat-like eyes from her perch next to the ladder.

"Half-hour affair…about the third time our grand-dad walked out on her. She ordered a pizza."

I rolled my eyes, not believing a word of it as I looked back down at the blue-prints of the Fenton-Portal.

"That sounds like a cheap smut movie. How old was she?"

She didn't mind my not believing it, judging by the tone of her voice.

"Thirty something. The guy was like eighteen, it was his first delivery."

I just jerked my eyebrows a bit and tried to find my place.

"Poor kid…"

I heard the boards creak as she sat up.

"Yeah. It was done safely, everyone was back then, but things happen. I don't think it was great on his part either, afterwards he asked for a real tip and walked out with twenty bucks not to tell anyone."

"…now I _really_ don't believe you…what kind of pizza boy has the ball bearings to pull that off?"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her slide down the ladder with her toes barely brushing against the side-poles.

"Beats me. She says he kept his hat on the whole time."

I slowly looked up from the notebook, staring blankly as my cousin picked up a pair of wraps from next to me on a table and started wrapping her hands as if this was a normal conversation.

"Um…well…that explains why your mom is taller than everyone else…and a few other things…"

Kirby, dressed in a small sport-top and some old cutoffs, pulled on a smaller pair of bag gloves and walked up to a smaller hanging bag some bubble wrap taped around it. She got into her punching stance before she realized what I'd mumbled and glanced at me from over her raised left shoulder.

"_¿Cuál es ése supuesto para significar?"_

I shrugged as she raised her gloves in front of her chin.

"Well, we come from a weird family…but now that I know you're the illegitimate grandchild of some guy wearing a hat, everything makes sense."

She shrugged, swinging her hair over one shoulder before elegantly throwing her left glove across her front and nailing a textbook jab into the belly of the bag. I nodded at her form before going back to researching what Vlad meant when he went on about some portal. Actually, if that lone pizza guy as really in shape that would explain why Kirby's taken to boxing so well. Why am I telling you about this conversation? I really don't know. But for some reason it gave me peace of mind about becoming as weird as Kirby someday.

That Night

If it weren't for my having a real life besides this ghost deal, I'd spend all my time flying. I would. When you were a kid did you ever put a snack in your back pocket and bike all the way into the next zip-code? Just get up in the morning, hop on your bike and not come back until your mom is calling you to come in for your long-cold dinner? That's what I'd do if I had one free day. Ever since I first flew, it hasn't gotten old. Whether I'm jetting ahead n a chase or just coasting above the farmland on my back, it's just amazing.

I'm telling you this because I was flying for the first time in a downtown city area, at night when all the lights are on. I was invisible of course, but the lights and the sounds are just amazing from above. Endless stripes of red and white whenever I flew over a two-lane road. The flashes of music and spotlights of the clubs. People on roof tops admiring the same scenery from their balcony, sometimes alone, sometimes hugging their other half. From above you don't see crummy alleys or drug deals. You see the best parts of the city, and the best people. Just like things have always been, the good stay in the light while others crowd in the dark. It's what flies at twilight that knows it all.

But enough philosophy. I wasn't out for an evening flight or a romantic outing. I was on the job. I was following the tourist-blocks towards a convention center on the edge of the skyline. This week's genre? Comic books. Old ones. According to the newspaper's website, they were hosting several private collections of vintage comics that were worth more than a few million if you added up all nine collections. Some individual issues comprised most of that total. And if I knew anything about the criminal…eh…well, the idiot mind I knew who would make a guest appearance.

I let my air drag slow me down as the six-story, block long convention center came into sight. I noted the banners on the street lamps all showed a different superhero from back in the day. Mostly ones dating back to the early 20th century. You know who I'm talking about. But I noticed a few more modern faces adorning the banners. For a couple decades things were pretty flat. Every new hero was a clone, a teenage replacement for an older hero, a cyborg, or a demon. Sometimes more than one at the same time.

Who ever was being featured, I can't say I stuck around to attend the convention. I circled the square building a few times, looking for any dark places and seeing a set of alleys right across the street from the main entrance. I silently nose-dived to roof level, kicking my feet under me and stopping when I saw the thin alley was occupied. I crossed my arms, looking down at my feet and seeing a rotund green figure clad in green stained clothing ruffling through what looked like a (green) duffel bag. Green is currently out of style. Either that's the dead nerd from last time, or just a nerd who painted himself green to cosplay as the dead nerd.

I watched from my unseen and non existent perch as he pulled out several yellowed stacks of papers barely bound together, made a few exaggerated hand gestures and suddenly there was that black-skinned demon from last time crouched on the ground before him. A few mor grabs from the bag and a few more corny slights of hand and he was surrounded by poorly modeled demonic characters in every color of the rainbow except pink. Of course, all the demons were identical to the black one, just smaller. Because individual differences are too hard to write and draw at the same time.

I watched him gesture with his hands for his little friends to storm the convention while he stuffed a few thousand comics into his duffel bag. You heard me. Sure, he can conjure fictional demons out of thin air. Well, air, paper and old ink but still. You ever notice complete idiots get all the breaks, whether it's a promotion or getting super powers?

Well, right as he motioned for them to move out I braced myself in mid-air, took a deep breath and a millisecond later I was standing between the group and he entrance of the alley, my bangs swinging from the air sprint. If I could just find a hair gel that holds, I swear people would think I could teleport. The green boy, standing about five feet even and a few feet wide, broke into a wire-lined grin as he recognized the only figure standing in their path. He waved his buttery palm, stopping the mindless beasts in their tracks as he greeted me.

"Back again? What, you want to take on five 5th tier demons instead of one?"

I didn't bat an eye as the beasts were suddenly surrounding me, one in each direction and one on the roof top above us. These things weren't just big, they were fast. As in poorly written fast. The nerd lowered his coke-bottle glasses and wiped them on his stained shirt dramatically as he calmly stated in that chalky tone.

"…you have a worse chance than Chris Reeves at a track meet…"

I finally broke my pose and let my eyes narrow an inch.

"…pardon?"

He snorted like a pig with asthma, plopping his glasses back on and grinning as his beasts crouched for the kill.

"You heard me…whatcha' gonna' do 'bout it? Beat me up?"

I slowly flexed my fingers before slowly clenching them into fists, hearing my knuckles crack themselves from the rage that coursed down my veins…

Thirteen and a Half Minutes Later

"…I'm not going to ask this again…who is Superman?"

I was standing on the far side of the convention center, as usual standing on the edge of the roof holding something off the side with one arm. But to break the pattern, I wasn't holding some beaten blood ghost, oh no. I was holding what looked like a nearly perfect sphere made out of greenish-white stretchy material, covered in elaborate knots of what looked like an elastic band. Unless you looked closely, you'd never know I literally cocooned a guy in his own briefs. I held the bundle by the elastic strap as a little warbling sound emitted from wherever his head ended up. His voice was freakishly high pitched, understandable considering he's still _wearing_ the underwear.

"…Kal-El of Krypton…?"

My eye twitched as I unceremoniously let go of the strap, letting it fall down a few feet before rearing back and punting the giant beach-ball shape right back up into the air. I watched it shoot off the roof into the night sky, accompanied by a squealing scream as his life flashed before his eyes…heck, I'd scream if I had a life like that, too. Right as the ball went to drop six stories, it exploded into a neon green light show. After the lights faded, there was nothing left but a few yellowed comic book pages which the wind swept away into the city's skyline maze as I watched them flutter off on my rooftop.

"…and stay out…"

I started walking towards the West edge, my hands buried in my jacket pockets as I muttered to myself.

"The guy from Smallville….pfft…Reeves or bust..."

When I reached the edge, I just hopped off into the six foot drop, falling into a forward flip and letting the air rush over my face before shooting straight off into the skyline, one arm extended in front of me as I took off into night sky. Still mumbling to myself.

Two Hours Later

I swooped down and went right through the outward wall of Kirby's bedroom, stopping while invisible and going solid as I touched my feet down on the carpet. I brushed myself off and nodded at Kirby, who just nodded back from her seat on her couch as I shifted back to my human self as I just walked over to the door. Still mumbling under my breath.

"…for two hours off the ventilator…!"

Right as I went to open her door and retire my room, I stopped and felt something was off. I looked over my shoulder at Kirby, who was lying on her couch in her baggy blue pajamas scratching on something with a Sharpie marker. I lowered my eyes and saw her coffee table was covered in several foot-high stacks of what looked like CD/DVD cases. I saw her finish writing, dropping a case she was holding onto a pile on the end and pick up another without acknowledging my presence. I got curious, walking over and picking up the case she'd just finished writing on.

I found myself holding a disc case which cover took me by surprise. It was a brightly lit, staged photograph of my cousin sitting cross-legged on a sidewalk, reclining against a plain brick wall with one of her older guitars resting on her lap as she gave the camera a coy grin. She was wearing shrunk-fit black jeans and a tank top, but I recognized the jacket tied around her waist as one of my old ones that had disappeared from my closet three weeks ago. In mock-cursive text in black on the sidewalk stood the phrase 'Just Another Girl', with larger text beneath it. I read off the stage name to the girl who bore it.

"… 'Kirby' Cisne De Oro…"

I noticed some fresh marker ink on the corner, where she'd artfully scrawled her illegible signature. Above it, odd enough, was an odd little smiley face with stubby arms and legs waving at me as I just stared at it. I glanced over at the album's artist, who was lying back on a pillow doing another autograph. She was focused on signing them all, but she finished the signature on the case with a little smirk as she placed it in the finished pile. She noticed the way I was looking at her as she grabbed another from the table.

"They're doing an early shipment. They sent me a few to autograph for some radio contests, six stations had to bid to put this thing on the air tomorrow."

I nodded slightly, setting the album down and watching her sign a few more in silence. She noticed I was still watching, she asked while she started another signature/smiley face combo.

"…what? If you want to smother me with a pillow or something, let me do a few more signatures. It'll add to my post-mortem value."

I smiled a bit and rolled my eyes at her odd humor, just shaking my head to myself as I went back over o the door, leaving her to her albums.

"…it's nothing. It's just weird to see some girl I have to share a gym with getting a record deal."

She chuckled sharply in her soprano tone as I twisted the door knob.

"Tell me about it. I thought it was weird to share a studio with a champion boxer."

She giggled at her own joke as I slipped out into the hallway and shut myself off in my room, no looking at the pile of comic books that cluttered my desk chair of the computer printouts of various weapons from the comics themselves pinned up on my desk. I just plucked one of Val's books from my end-table, plopping back onto my hardly slept-in bed and turning to a later chapter. As I went over a boring paragraph I pondered the last day or so. Lesse', pulled off a huge intimidation maneuver against Vlad. Found out more details about his abilities. Finished a jigsaw puzzle. Taught Kirby how to circle both ways around a sparring partner. Took out the comic nerd after days of research and planning. Looked at Kirby's new album, and now I'm reading into how Valerie refined ghost energy displacement.

…I really have no life, don't I?

Author's Notes

First of all, I'm sorry for the delay. I made the mistake of telling my family where I lived near the July holidays.I also made the mistake of telling my girlfriend that my birthday was last Wednesday. And another apology, I'm aware the scene in the barn was a bit rough-cut. But it has a very serious message. Some of you may think Kirby is...loose. By revealing her family background I've shown you her exact reasons for not going near all that. She's not that kind of girl, despite dress choice and sense of humor. Even if she was, I'd exclude those details for good reason. So, is Alan capable of beating Vlad? Well, as a human Vlad isn't blind. But he's also no Alan. If they weren't at the party, Alan would be as dead as Danny. Alan just played his cards and bluffs right and paid attention in detective class. Also, some of you who read my other stories may have found the pizza boy thing...familiar. To answer your question, yes, that was Dave. Thanks for reading, review if you have the time. And apologies in advance for any unclean content.


	18. Chapter 18

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

Pre-Note: Good balance of Alan/Phantom. Nothing too trashy or violent. Very sorry for the delay, busy week. Enjoy.

Kirby spends most if not all of her time either shadowing me or off in the loft working on her music. Often, she drags me along to a club or big party in the city. Usually she just takes the wood finish off the dance floor, has a quick drink and mingles with everyone until things go stale or start getting a bit too carbonated. Lately I've been too busy to sit around at a table while she does her dance routine. So this particular evening after the comic book convention she went alone. I'd play the overprotective relative card, but I taught the girl how to fight myself. It's not like I'd trust her with pepper spray either, she'd probably try to use it in a chili recipe.

When I heard the bike pull up right outside the barn, I was a bit pre-occupied. I was hanging by one arm from the top beam of the barn, taking a few deep breaths with my other limbs dangling before kicking violently to the side and using my momentum to swing up and onto the wooden support, ending in a standing position with my head inches away from the sloping roof. I shifted my feet apart slightly on the inches-wide board before looking towards the loft opening and seeing a headlight turn off. The entire barn was in near darkness, the bulbs were old and I didn't want to waste them. Remember, that I have decent night-vision as a ghost. When I heard the Termisake engine cut-off, I just figured she was back early, and resumed using the suspended beams like a set of monkey bars.

I know it's crazy. One slipped finger and it's a thirty foot drop onto wood-covered sod. I use to fool around up here as a kid, who wouldn't. But now that I knew I could manipulate my own gravity, it turned the unfinished barn ceiling into a training apparatus.

About a half hour passed, I then heard footsteps echoing on the packed dirt around the barn. I didn't bat an eye as the door started creaking open, I just stuck a one-legged landing on a two-inch beam after a side-flip. As I held my arms to the side, staring straight ahead into the dark and pondering behind green eyes if my technique was still a bit rusty. Right as I was about to try the same maneuver, the barn door opened a quarter-foot and I heard Kirby's voice chime into the barn. I figured she was just talking to herself.

"…and Fuzzy is a steel guitar I picked up in…"

As I glanced down to greet my gravity-bound cousin as she undid the chain on the door in I thought of something something. Kirby only talks to herself in Spanish. And why was she telling herself what the nicknames of her numerous guitars were? Suddenly the door was kicked back on its hinges, banging against the wall behind it and revealing the two people standing behind it. The exact moment I saw she hadn't come back alone, I felt a chilled sensation go through my veins as I disappeared into thin air. Sure, I was hidden in the beams in total darkness while wearing black, but it was a reflex.

I moved down into a crouch, touching two finger-tips to the beam as my cousin flipped the light switch and brought the flood lights mounted on the lower beams to life. I was still out of sight, even more so due to the brightness contrast between the ceiling and the harshly lit barn room as I watched the scene play out. Kirby, dressed in a spunky little outfit she wore to a few clubs, was walking towards the center towards the center of the barn, talking to the figure that hadn't come through the doorway.

I swung my eyes over and saw a guy about our age slumped over his own weight and glancing around nervously from under a beanie cap a size too small for his hair-bound head. His pale fingers tapped against his torn jeans as Kirby went on about her loft studio as if he was listening. As she walked back over to him I noticed he was much shorter than her, probably due to his posture. He wasn't coming off as bored or with interior motives like some guys. Just … nervous? As a girl who dwarfed the little guy both in muscle tone and stature grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the loft ladder to show him her guitars, I felt his pain.

As she hopped up onto the ladder, still continuing the one-sided conversation I took the opportunity to shoot out of my crouch onto the loft platform before the two could get up the ladder. By the time Kirby's head popped up between the wooden rungs, I was comfortably sprawled back in an old bean bag chair and reading an upside-down Sherlock Holmes book as if I had been for hours. I'm no Danny, but I have to give myself some credit on how quick I can shift in a pinch.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her golden face light up as she saw me, she quickly pulled herself into the loft and literally tugged her little friend up with her by the shoulder. He flopped forward onto the boards with a yelp and a thud. I saw the back of his hooded shirt advertised a local guitar shop. Ah. So that's why she kidnapped him.

"…and this is Alan! You'll love this. _Alano_, tell Eddie what you do."

I raised my eyes over the unreadable text, glancing over as the guy pulled himself to his sneaker-clad feet, dusting his black shirt off as he did so. He slowly raised his eyes up to look at where I sat. I noticed he hadn't shaved in a couple days. I flashed him a reassuring smile and stated in Kirby's direction.

"I'm unemployed with no life."

I gave the guy a slight nod before looking over at his captor, who was glaring at me with her arms pressed into her denim-wrapped hips.

"My cousin…is a Golden Gloves boxer."

She crossed her arms and closed her eyes with a warm smile as she boasted over what her relative had done. I raised an eyebrow at her statement, while Eddie just stared blankly at the space between us with a confused look on his pale face. Most civilians don't know boxing terms, who could blame the poor guy. I nearly jumped out of my seat when he suddenly mumbled in a cracked but well-tuned voice.

"Uh…yeah, this is a pretty cool place. But I kinda' have to get home…?"

Kirby nodded rather suddenly.

"Oh! Yeah, there's enough gas in the bike…"

He cut her off rather reluctantly, judging by how pale he'd grown.

"…I'll call a cab. Thanks for showing me around. Stop by the shop sometime!"

My eyebrow jumped another inch as he suddenly scrambled down the ladder and out the open barn door, leaving the two of us staring at the place he'd been standing with identical eyebrow angles.

"…so…where'd you find him again?"

She sighed, answering in Spanish. I'll translate.

"We started talking guitars…I took him back here, showed him the house and everything. He stopped talking when he first saw our bike."

I slowly nodded, snapping my upside-down book shut and setting it down next to the bean chair she'd tossed up here after a week of living down the hall.

"So, you gave him a ride him on _my_ bike…showed off an empty ten-bedroom house…and then brought him into a dark barn to show off your cousin? What else, did you show him that one thing you do with the lipstick?"

She groaned as she slumped forward, throwing her feet off the edge of he loft and ending up in a sitting position. She let her face fall into her hands as she shrugged and answered.

"Yeah…yeah…"

I sighed, pushing off the bean chair and walking over behind her.

"You didn't freak him out, I think. Just kind of…intimidated him?"

…sounds better than scared the hell out of…She covered her emerald eyes with her work-tanned hands.

"Great…you're Casper the Ass-Kicking Ghost, and _I'm_ the one who can't get a date?"

I shrugged, taking a seat next to her and letting my legs hang while she clicked her heels to and fro like a metronome.

"You have a lot to offer, Kirb'. The problem is, you're offering it all at once."

She sighed again, dropping her hands and looking down off the ledge at the disheveled punching bags that nonchalantly waited for some one to hit them. Her eternal smile was missing in action. It was odd to see her lips in a straight line instead of that coy little line of teeth her talent agent was trying to copyright.

"Maybe I should have skipped telling him about my record deal…"

I looked up at the shadowed ceiling, squinting to see the beams. I keep most of my powers in human form, but the night vision comes and goes.

"…or you could skip the lipstick thing…"

I felt a light shove on my shoulder as her smile jumped back into place.

"Hey, that takes a lot of talent."

I rolled my eyes.

"Any girl who saw 'The Breakfast Club' can do it…"

I glanced over to find her defiantly crossing her arms, smirking but with a stern tenseness in her brow.

"Your sisters can't…"

"…okay, any girl who saw that part of the movie and doesn't starve herself can do it."

She snorted, shifting back to her old self as she stood up and stepped over me to get to the ladder.

"Could have been worse, the other Fentons could have been around. Where are they, anyway?"

I shrugged, swinging my legs under my chin as she hopped down the first few rungs.

"Out to dinner. They have some electronics guy staying on the third floor, they're talking about an endorsement thing."

"That explains the weird toaster in the kitchen…"

I nodded slowly, staring up at the dark ceiling for a few moments before her words hit home. I slowly lowered my gaze to parallel and asked.

"...weird toaster?"

I was answered by the sound of the door being pushed closed. Leaving me alone in the barn that had become my sanctuary from both my family and the reluctantly deceased. Well, it was until Kirby shoved all her guitars and beatnik furniture into the loft and pinned up pictures of female boxers all over the support posts. I'd take them down, but I have a thing for in-shape girls. And I think she pasted them on with some shellac or something, they won't come off.

The Next Morning

I think I've finally gotten used to not sleeping. I've even found productive ways to spend my night hours.

It was around five in the morning.

"Two hundred eighteen…two hundred nineteen…two hundred twen…"

Right as I was about to break my personal record of consecutive times I bounced a hacky sack into the air with my forehead, my door was swung open and I made the mistake of turning to see who it was. I winced as I heard the little sack plop onto the carpet behind me, sighing at another failed attempt before looking up and seeing a very tired, barely conscious Sherri slumped against my doorframe in her pajamas. I nearly smirked at the sight of her black ponytail wrapped around her neck from how she rolled in her sleep.

"…mom says Mr. Foley wants to meet you and Kirby…he's out in the field."

She didn't acknowledge my blank stare, she just turned on one bent leg to go back downstairs. The girls liked to sleep until noon usually, get them up before them and you end up with twin zombies. I stared at the empty doorway for a few seconds as it hit me. Foley…probably just a coincidence, but still…Foley…no way it could be…Wait, that weird toaster in the kitchen had a Wi-Fi symbol on the side…

Ten Minutes Later

"_...¿Usted es seguro que éste es el individuo?"_

I kicked open the front door to the porch as Kirby walked behind me, rubbing her sleep-starved eyes with one hand and trying to straighten out the halo of tangles around her head, all while smoothing out the tee shirt she'd slept in. She's no prom queen, but it takes a couple hundred serious brush-swipes to get her hair to behave every morning. She really has to work to get it straight and shiny like she does, some days she just tucks it all under a baseball cap and pretends she doesn't have hair.

"I _think_ it's the guy... He told my folks he wanted to meet us before he left, you'd think my sister would mention it's a family friend or something."

Kirby knew not to ask why or how. I sometimes make the mistake of questioning myself what's going on, never got an answer. You get unexplained supernatural powers? Roll with it. Your grandfather died and no one clearly knows how? Keep rolling. Some guy your grandparents went to high school with wants to meet you? You know the drill. Can't figure out how they get those huge chunks of ice in the water bottles at the gym? Now you're just being an idiot.

I cautiously scanned the sun-bathed field across the road from the house, looking for any sign of the guy. I spotted a dark figure against the yellow green, it appeared to be both pacing back and forth and…eh, fighting its invisible friend? My cousin walked up next to me on the edge of the old porch, grunting in anguish before just forcing her confidently rebellious hair into the neck of her shirt and down her back.

"…should just take some shears and-what the heck is that?"

We both stared at the distant figure as it stumbled into a roll and stood back up, looking around either for another enemy or to see if anyone saw him trip.

"Looks like he's trying to do a form…"

By now we had assumed an identical posture, staring out at the little dancing guy with calculating eyes. She remarked, her accent slightly heavy as she forgot to hold back her lilt.

"No way that's a _kata_…He's not doing drills either, he's just flailing around."

I nodded, confirming.

"…the lower stance looks like Eastern TKD…but he's jumping around like a geeky Bruce Lee fan."

…you remembered I practiced martial arts with one of my aunts, right? Of course you do. Only about eighteen years of advanced styles under my belt, Kirby has nineteen. My aunt is known the unnecessary drills and ranks, so we were just taught the flashy stuff and the practical stuff. Kirby later got into gymnastics and later dancing. I fell into actual combat arts and later …you know the rest. As we stepped off the porch and tread in bare feet out towards the guy in the field, our brief flashback to our younger days training together in our aunt's dojo ended without an echo.

When we crossed the dirt road and hopped the dilapidated fence that once separated horses from the occasional pickup truck, we got a closer look at the Bruce Lee Wannabe. He was of African descent, which would have explained the dark outline he had from a distance. Except he was wearing a slim-fit, two-piece black gi tied with a white sash. His hair was covered with an embroidered black bandana-cap as he continued jumping around making kung-fu noises as if we weren't standing there. My cousin and I exchanged glances as he let out a high-pitch kai as he spun on a sandaled heel to face us, arm back as if to chop a tree. The moment he saw us he stood straight up to his full height, arms behind his back.

"Uh…just getting in a morning workout…helps keep young."

I managed to keep my eyebrows in neutral as I noticed that under the black bandana he was wearing silver framed glasses pushed back on his nose. His obviously custom-made 'workout' uniform was hardly worn. And he was built like Urkel, I have a feeling he only did this to show off to my parents. And us. He went on in a serious, yet high-pitched tone.

"I'm T.S Foley. I do sales work for one of the largest personal electronics companies on the West Coast, and I think the Fentons would make good spokesmen."

…he seriously changed his middle name to Smooth? I thought Sam said that metaphorically. He hadn't let either of us get a word in, so far. He had a habit of...talking. Non-stop.

"I was a friend of your grandfather back in the day, so I decided to handle this deal myself."

I nodded, pretending to listen as I examined his rounded features. I can't say he looked younger than he was. Much, much older than Sam by comparison, maybe I should switch to vegetarianism. He adjusted his ridiculous little bandana and asked out of the blue.

"…is there anywhere we could speak in private? This sun isn't good for my pores."

Yep. Urkel in an expensive gi.

A Few Minutes Later

"So you're saying there's a nice ghost running around…fighting other ghosts?"

I glanced over at Kirby as she lounged in her bean chair and asked Mr. Foley the simplest of questions. He was sitting next to her third electric guitar, cross-legged and still wearing that ninja get up. I was hunched over on an empty guitar case, my chin on my knees. Tucker had just explained his background in the supernatural, including being married to V.W. Gray. He failed to notice several of her books scattered around the loft, or the fact I knew both his wife and daughter while he was off in Japan selling toasters.

"…a _half_ ghost…"

I forced my eyebrow up at the not-so-strange phrase.

"…halfa' ghost? And he's fighting other ghosts. Makes sense."

He nodded, having been leading the conversation since it started.

"Yes it does. You see…I've encountered this before."

I made my eyes a bit wider. Kirby, on the other hand, had to gasp and practically beg for an Oscar as she clutched her heart with one hand. He still fell for our performance. He sat there, in his little workout outfit and eyeglasses, nodding at our 'shock' and continuing.

"…and these recent supernatural incidents match up with the old pattern."

Before Kirby could gasp 'How is that possible!' in a French accent he took off his glasses and wiped them on his black shirt.

"I've been keeping tabs on the news. Strange aerial sightings. Spikes in ecto-energy activity. Major ghost attacks being handled before the task forces show up. This is Inviso-Bill all over again."

I managed not to chuckle at that name again. Kirby asked.

"…you think there's another one? After all these years?"

He raised one gloved hand to his chin, stroking it thoughtfully in a manner copied from a soap opera commercial.

"…more like two of them…"

About this time, our charade ended. Kirby was actually in shock, and I really didn't have a clue how he figured it out. I stood up in a jolt, demanding.

"WHAT!"

He nodded, looking dramatically off to the side.

"Yeah…if there is another human-ghost hybrid around, it looks like it has an accomplice. Every major event, from that Ember concert to that opera house tragedy would take more than one person to pull off."

…oh, he's just been toying with us…I reached up and rubbed my forehead, my cousin just looked between us repeatedly, wondering what went wrong. The wannabe detective went on once again.

"And each recent attack happened right in this area. Suspiciously close to where the Fentons have taken root. Considering their involvement in what I like to call 'Ghost Wars: Episode One' it didn't take me long to make the connection…"

…Ghost...Wars…? He stood up, his eyes still closed to show how he knew it all. He waved one gloved hand and finished.

"…and conveniently enough, there are two extremely capable teenagers living in a house full of ghost technology…at least one of which is the grandfather of a man who was heavily involved in the Ghost Wars…."

…somewhere, George Lucas in spinning around in his R2-D2 shaped cremation urn…but seriously, how did he figure us out? Sam said he was a nerd, not a freakin' private eye! By now I was pacing back and forth across the loft as he cleaned his glasses and waited for us to react. Eventually I stopped pacing and just sighed, letting my hands fall to my sides in defeat. Kirby just fell back and stared at the ceiling. I took a deep breath and asked.

"…did you mention this to my parents?"

He put his glasses back on and stood up, standing a good few inches shorter than me even in those stupid sandals. I slowly looked down to find him standing in front of me, scrawny arms crossed and giving me a small smile. I nearly pulled back as he reached up and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Alan, I've been in your shoes before…"

I looked him in the eye, through the crystal lenses, finding not an arrogant shine but an empathetic look of concern. He dropped his detective act and plain out said.

"…it took me a while to get together after Danny…died. Recently I pulled myself together, when I heard from Val about the supernatural activity out here…"

I nodded, glad he had stopped acting like Jaheel White acting like Sherlock Holmes.

"…I hoped Danny was back for a while. Then found out it was a different Halfa, heard from a couple captured ghosts about the differences. It went like I said it, that's why I came down here."

I awkwardly glanced over to see Kirby still in her chair, just watching us with wide eyes. I looked back at Tucker as he told me.

"…Danny would have been proud that some one inherited his powers…and his cause."

…I'll correct him…later…

"Just keep doing what you've been doing. All _my_ work is done. I have a family now that needs me."

I suddenly thought of Wasp. All those years at the gym, she never mentioned her parents. No wonder she snapped at people so often and got that nickname in the first place. He patted my shoulder before letting go and stepped back towards the ladder, giving me a nod before he went for the ladder.

"I know it's tough, Alan. And it takes a lot not to tell anyone about your sisters being Halfas. Just keep it up, if I could do it you two can."

With that he reached up and tipped his…bandana to me, nodded in Kirby's direction and clambered down the ladder and shuffled out the door to the barn, leaving both of us frozen in place, staring with slack jaws at the place he'd been standing. Again, this is like a daily thing for us.

Twenty Minutes Later

…We haven't moved. At all.

Right as a spider ascended my sleeve and was ready to call its real estate agent, I lifted my jaw back into place with one hand and slowly turned to where my sidekick still sat frozen.

"…did he just say…"

Slowly, her eyes lost that glazed layer and she muttered.

"…_Si…?"_

I nodded slowly, looking back at where he'd been standing.

"…he figured it all out…dead on, even figured out I had help. He connected all the stuff I've done. He told me to keep it up. And then…"

She finished my sentence in unaccented English. She must have regained her senses enough to not sound like Speedy Gonzales on estrogen.

"…it turns out he has no clue what he's saying…"

"…he thinks…my sisters, are Halfas."

I heard her knees creak as she sat up in her chair, wobbling to a standing position.

"…he said two capable teenagers…at least one was Danny's relative. The twins fit that perfectly."

I snapped my fingers softly.

"And he left 'at least one' to sound official…Sam was right. He's a genius, no denying. But I suddenly figured out why Wasp has poor people skills."

I heard her step up next to me as I stared off the edge of the loft at the open doorway, my hand had shot up to my chin without my knowing. She commented.

"Your sisters would be the main suspects, if he didn't know they're just teenage girls. He doesn't know _you_. At all. Alan, _I_ figured something was up the first day I came down here and you came to the mall with us!"

I stroked my chin and realized she had a sharp point. Tucker would be a good detective if he could judge character and morality in people he's just met. Heck, one dinner with my sisters and they have him thinking they _had_ inherited Danny's powers. They're that full of it. I love 'em, but they're just so arrogant. I heard the sound of fast, shallow breathing beside me. I didn't bother to look to see if she was hyperventilating.

"I'll give you ten minutes…"

With that I calmly walked over to the ladder as my convulsing cousin fell like a board sideways onto the floor of the loft, immediately starting a rolling/laughing fit as I hopped off the ledge. I went invisible as I fell, falling to about six feet off the ground before swooping out through a wall and flying off to find an empty field to call Sam in. She'd probably get a laugh out of this, too. Or at least a monotone 'Ha.'. She laughs less often than I do.

Later That Day

"…you are dizzled meat, dawg…"

He said this right before I grabbed him by the stocking cap and literally threw him over my shoulder. I was running an errand for the gym, and ran into a…gang of fourteen year old boys who were probably Caucas…cuacasio…_white_, before they were green. Green or white, they were acting black. I personally use the term African American, but their words not mine. So, preteen gang of skinny little punks who can't handle being white and middle class. How they died and came back as ghosts, I honestly don't want to know. However they died, they were trying to steal hubcaps when I found them. Without any tools.

It just took a couple backhands, punts and a few dwarf tosses to take care of them. No ghost powers or gimmicks, just annoying preteens that no one can get rid of except me in ghost form. I feel like Superman getting something off a high shelf because he's tall.

Barely a few minutes after I'd run into the little Abercrombie chain gang, I ignored their high-pitched protest and slammed the lid of the dumpster closed. I then cocked my fingers like a gun at the center of the lid, fired a tiny green speck of green at the metal and smirked as the intense heat welded the lid closed. I can't clean up a lab, but this 'almost fire powers' thing has its advantages.

We were already in a secluded alley, so I just looked both ways before shifting out of my jacket and hair-flop to my cleaner cut alter-ego, walking out towards the mouth of the alley and whistling a tune to drown out the whimpering coming from the sealed dumpster. After a quick stop at the corner convenience mart, I got back to the gym in time to pull Kirby free of several lifeless pugs who wanted them to autograph their biceps so they can go to the tattoo parlor next store and trace it. Apparently Latin Soft Rock is big in this part of town. Who am I kidding, those boxers just can't get over a female boxer who doesn't shave her head.

The walk to the train station is worth mentioning. I only mentioned those dang ghost-kids to explain why it took me an extra three minutes to pick up ten bags of chips to hold everyone over until they fix the vending machine. I held my old canvas duffel bag over my shoulder while Kirby carried out a brand-new sport bag the guys had given her to celebrate her record deal. Like I said, it's a big family in there.

"I heard Ember was doing a comeback concert the other day."

I pretended not to find this interesting.

"Huh…didn't she cancel it?"

I glanced over and watched her snort lightly and flash those teeth of hers down at the sidewalk.

"…how'd you do it? I was with you all day."

I glanced back ahead of me, checking to see if anyone who looked intelligent was around before I said in an off-hand manner.

"I had an agency deliver her a red rose. I specified a black ribbon around the stem, and a little note reading 'Forgot me already?'."

Kirby's smirk widened. I shrugged.

"The papers say she called it quits the minute she got done reading her fan mail, she told the press there was a family emergency."

"…very stylish…so, you finally watched the play?"

I shook my head, stepping left and up the stairs to the train platform. She followed, adjusting the strap of her new bag and wringing cooled sweat out of her black hooded sweatshirt with the hood and the sleeves torn off at the shoulder.

"…no, I saw the rose thing on the web. I just hoped I copied the right play, or that Ember was afraid of Broadway in general."

She cracked.

"Hey, if this Phantom thing doesn't work out you can be Danny from Grease."

I slowly slid my eyes over to where she stood smiling at me. As our train coasted into view, I calmly stated.

"…if that was a play on Danny's name, touché…if that was a shot at my jacket, you're going to wake up in a cornfield tomorrow."

That Night

"…right over the bar…some people…"

My father was sprawled out on the couch after a long day of investment deals reading the paper. The sub-headline, new details on the affair at the Masters Ball just a couple nights ago. Masters Ball. Masters Ball. There's gotta' be a joke in there somewhere…I was too busy to think one up, as he read this off the front page I was bent over the other couch, looking underneath it for a library card I haven't used in three years but I still like to have around.

"You hear this, Alan? Some guy beat the living crap out of Mr. Masters at his own party. Socked him right over a bar when no one was around, he blacked out when he smashed into a mirror."

I whistled in un-spirited astonishment, more concerned about that library card. I mean, what if the chip on the back got scratched? I never check out books, but it'd be heck to get a new card when I don't even know where the library is. I heard him fold the page over to the back to read the extension.

"…yeah, spent the night in the hospital for observation. He looked fine the next day, this area has great medical benefits."

"…great, great, have you seen a plastic blue card around?"

He scratched his tee-shirt stretching stomach and grunted a bit.

"Nope. But how could a guy punch a big guy like Vladmere off his feet?"

I took a sharp breath and lifted the end of the couch onto an angle with one hand, peeking at the fresh carpet under it for the card. Nothing.

"No clue. Did mom have a maid run through the house again?"

He pulled out the sports page.

"Why hire a maid? We're never home."

I sighed, dropping the couch back into place and standing up, rubbing my neck and trying to remember where I saw the dang thing last.

"Your cousin would love this. The guy who hit him was dressed like the Phantom of the Opera."

I didn't waste any energy on pretending to find that unusual.

"…I've heard…I'm going to go check the library."

He nodded, looking over a box chart as I jogged up the steps. I heard the girls come upstairs underneath me from their evening jog.

"Girls! You hear about the thing at the Masters Ball? Right over the bar…some people…"

…am I ever that predictable?

A few minutes later I walked into my room examining a dusty blue card in the light, thankful the card was fine. Don't ask where I found it. I closed my door behind me and plopped down onto my bed, flicking on the television with the remote I pulled from under the bed. I sighed as the boxing network lit up my wall.

"Finally, something ordinary…"

I nearly jumped out when a husky voice suddenly purred close to my left ear.

"…why not go for _extraordinary_…?"

Three milliseconds later and I was six feet away, crouched on the top of my desk chair like a scared cat. I stared with a raised eyebrow and a loose jaw at who had been waiting in the bed. Kirby, dressed in one of my old shirts and new jeans, was laying on her side luxuriously with a hand on her hip and her head up tilted at me with half-open, heavy-lidded eyes. A few seconds of staring later, my tongue started working again.

"Eh…Kirb'? Did you find some tea leaves in Kerri's room and use them in your tea? Because there's a good chance those weren't tea leaves…"

She broke into an unusual smile, giggling in a manner that just scared me. She slowly swung her legs out and sat down on the edge of the bed, leaning toward me with her hands holding up her chin. She kept looking at me like…well, like that. I stared right back as she made her eyebrows jump suggestively. My own eyebrows lowered, my central nerve system kicking in as it all clicked. I put one arm behind my back as I sat atop the chair back.

"…I mean, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!"

I pointed to the door, she dropped the sexy gaze and looked with a ticked expression. I grunted and swung my arm around my shoulder, sending the blunt of my hand into the back of her head.

…it's not like it sounds, let me finish.

There was a light slapping sound as my arm swung back around my other shoulder, I looked forward to find my cousin hadn't budged. She was still sitting on the bed and facing the closed door, but with a confused, groggy expression on here face. And sprawled out on the floor beside the bed was a familiar green skinned girl cursing as she clutched the back of her head in pain. I glared down at where she lay.

"Kitten…this is the second time this _week…"_

She managed to untangle herself from the skirt she was wearing, standing up on one leg in front of me as she struggled to free the other leg from her fishnets. She swung her red eyes up at me and smiled innocently.

"Heey…I missed you?"

I rolled my eyes, scoffing.

"Yeah, I heard you say the same thing to the Box Ghost whenever I turn you down."

Her features went from alluring and desire-filled, to plain out pissed. She clenched her clawed fingers into fists as she yelled.

"…_that's a lie!"_

I shot back.

"Why can't you and Johnny just talk this out? This envy game is just going to get some one killed!"

She growled, leaning close to my face as I sat perched on the chair back.

"…talk? TALK? Talking never works, now do you want me or not?"

I spat.

"NO! Geez, you're not single. You're not my type. You're not my age. You're not even _alive_...I swear, if you keep this up…"

Her eyes narrowed.

"…you'll what? You can't hit a girl when she's expecting it!"

I felt my smirk finally show itself. I nodded over her shoulder as she fumed.

"No, but _she_ can..."

She scoffed and spun her hair-spray molded head to look, and froze cold as she saw Kirby standing an inch behind her. The Latina had her arms crossed, and she was looking down from her height advantage with a look of emerald fury. Kitten quickly broke out in a nervous smile as I saw Kirby's right eye twitch. I hopped off the chair and actually flew off to their side, landing so I could see their profiles staring the other down.

"Kitten, I believe you know Kirby. You've been stealing her body without permission on and off for months. Kirby, this is the girl who jacks up your credit card bill and tries to turn us into a Southern couple."

Kitten giggled forcefully, shrinking back against the chair as the six-foot dancer/boxer stepped forward. I raised my right arm to my side, concentrating on it for a second before extending it out towards them, now holding a neon green but realistic looking wooden bat with a logo sticker on the handle.

"And _this_…is the patent-pending Alan Fenton Anti-Skank Stick. Kirby, mind testing it out?"

She didn't take her eyes off her prey, baring her teeth with a hiss as she snatched the ghostly weapon with one hand. The minute Kitten saw this she yelped and literally ran through my bedroom door. Kirby threw it open after her and ran down the steps with the bat raised over her head. I perked my ears up, listening to the high-pitched squeal and the Amazon battle cry as they descended down the steps. Half-way down I heard a male voice call out.

"Hey, Kirby! Kirby's little friend in the call-girl outfit, you hear about Mr. Masters?"

They didn't stop to hear his speech. The screaming went on, and I heard the front door slam open. I glanced out my window and saw the green glow of the ecto-bat zooming off along the dark field.

Ten Minutes Later

My sister pounded on my door with both fists.

"Alan! Get out here!"

On the other side of the locked door, was my bed which I had pushed up against it to barricade it. I was leaning back against the door with a pillow under my neck, my hands behind my head and my feet propped up on a pillow as I watched a boxing match on the flat-screen opposite the bed.

"…I'm busy…"

She kept pounding.

"You have to go get Kirby before one of them kills the other!"

I sighed, finally relaxing for the first times in weeks.

"Hey, either way I have one less psycho girl in my life."

She yelled.

"What if they both don't come back!"

I sighed, this time sadly.

"If I could only be that lucky…"

As I watched a commercial for tires roll by, she kept yelling.

"Alan, why won't you just come out?"

"…Kerri, there are things bigger than you and I…and frankly, this is my happy place and I'm not coming out. Unless some millionaire vampire guy in a trench-coat knocks on our door. Or the pope. Or a vampire guy dressed like the pope."

I heard her reply.

"…this is _Sherri…"_

I happily said.

"…I don't care who you are, I'm on vacation in here."

I smiled at the TV right as the boxing match came back on. And right before the picture and sound cut away to a blue screen reading 'No Signal'. My smile slowly fell as I flipped through channels, finding the same screen on every network. Eventually I dropped the remote, frowning as I slid off my bed and stood up with my shoulders slumped. I sighed, snapping my fingers sadly and going ghost as I did. I then flipped my jacket collar up over my neck and called to the door.

"…Kerri, Sherri, who ever? I'm gonna' go find Kirby…then maybe I'll go terrorize some livestock or something…"

With one last sad look at the broken satellite channel and a sigh, I went invisible and swooped out my window in search of the telltale glowing bat.

For a good eight minutes there, I was at peace with the world.

Author's Notes

Yeah, Tucker finally came out of seclusion and got back into things before he went back to his family. He's still Tucker. He figured it all out, except with the wrong clues. From his thinking angle, the twins _could_ be Halfas. Then again, so many years of using laptops can make a guy a bit senile. Or is it sterile..well, one of those. Of course, this just shows Kirby and Alan aren't high-profile to the ghost hunting community. Tucker thought Kirby and Alan are like Tucker/Sam in the series, supporting characters. So he spoke to them rather then the twins themselves. And it really had Alan worried about his identity for about thirty seconds. The end part? Everyone who works hard deserves an occasional break. And Alan doesn't get one.


	19. Chapter 19

DISCLAMIER: See previous entries

Pre-Note: Very sorry for the delays in the last few chapters. My schedule had been nuts, should straighten out soon enough. And a minor warning. There are mentions of acts of extreme violence in this chapter. Just mentions, but some may find them unnerving.

"I'm being honest. Some girls just look better than others, it's not like I look at their feet all the time. A girl _knows_ if she's got it, so do the rest of us."

"...we've been engaged for four months, and I find out you think this _now?_ What else, are you a Rosie O'Donnel fan?_"_

I rolled my eyes, leaning back in my chair as the two shot playful insults at each other behind me. The conversation, female boxing stereotypes and how Wasp fits all of them except for _that_ one.

"Are you two done? This is why I don't invite you over anymore, this lovebird bickering thing got old. Fast."

I heard Wasp scoff as she flipped some magazine pages loudly.

"And the fact you live in the middle of nowhere."

Her fiancée added.

"And your parents get nervous when we ring the doorbell."

His future wife cracked.

"Oh, and your sisters are just hell-spawn."

I sighed, tapping away on my wireless keyboard and trying to find a web page about wedding policies and sports arenas. The Fentons had driven off for a staged photo shoot, and Wasp and Aron needed a place to plan the wedding without Wasp's long-lost father trying to take over the occasion. He's trying to compensate for old times. I hit the enter key, trying not to think of Tucker being the comical father of the bride. I can't laugh and type at the same time.

"'Kay, I got a few form scans to book a few clubs during the low-season."

Aron asked.

"Any at the Rosetta?"

My finger froze over the print button. None of the arenas were the one and only Rosetta Square.

"Well, I couldn't…"

"Keep looking, Bro'."

I slowly nodded and went back to the search engine page. The Rosetta was a little old boxing club on the edge of the state, it was a nice little place owned by some CEO but ran by an extended Polish family. It was where Wasp and Aron had met a few years ago. Aron was looking for a client after getting his trainer license. Wasp was on the under-card on a Friday night. Her crooked manager walked out on her after he got her paycheck, but before she could get her gloves off to grab him as he took off with the envelope. Aron stepped in and helped her take off the gloves and console her, always a gentleman.

Shortly afterwards Wasp begged her mom to move out to the city where Aron mentioned he lived. Things went from there, and here I was trying to book the Rosetta for their fall wedding because I was the guy who Aron came to the Rosetta wit. My thirty third win by knockout, if I recall. I also was the guy who told Wasp in the locker room one day that he was in love with her, and to stop carving hearts on the side of my locker with his name in the center. Long story short, I'm Aron's best man.

I kept flipping websites for another half hour while the two sat on my bed admiring my posters and flipping through bridal magazines and a boxing apparel catalog respectively. Yes, Aron has to pick out the bridesmaid dresses. Wasp just needs another dozen pairs of trunks, she's infamous for having a new flashy pair every match. While Aron was scratching his buzzed head at the satin monstrosities, Wasp looked at the back of my chair and asked.

"Hey, where's Mittens?"

I stopped in mid key-stroke once again, wondering if any of my fight posters featured a 'Mittens'. Or if she meant Frost, who didn't exactly look like a Mittens. She continued.

"I thought she lived out here with you guys, where's she hiding?"

My eyebrows snapped up as I clicked two fingers and spun in my chair on one leg, turning to face the dark-skinned girl.

"Oh! Yeah, her grandmother made a run for it last night. Her folks are out looking for the old bag. Probably up to her neck in Vegas' by now. Kirb' is running the studio for the day."

'Mittens' was the name Wasp and a few other pros in the gym had bestowed upon Kirby lovingly after she became a fixture. When you get a nickname from the veterans, you're family. They call her Mittens because she's always asking people if she could try on their gloves, she somehow finds them fascinating. Always asking what shade of color they are, how heavy, how comfortable they are. She's not an idiot. She just…likes gloves?

She also, as you know, resembles a cat so closely that if she hooked a tail onto her belt and wore an ears-attached headband, she could pose for stereotypical-anime magazine pull-outs. I've been going to that gym since before I hit puberty, and they just call me 'Fent. It's discrimination, I tell you. Wasp lightly grunted.

"Huh…"

With that she went back to her catalog, probably looking for tassels boxers often wear on their shoelaces. Wasp's an excellent fighter, trust me, but she has a craving for flashy accessories that rivals my two sisters put together.

Imagine three hours of this. Around two o'clock I managed to print out a contact form for the chain that owned the Rosetta, and Aron was in the middle of filling it out when my phone rang from its perch on my desk. I snatched it from its cradle and flipped it open in one grooved motion.

"…Hello?"

The tiny speaker buzzed into my ear. My eyes shot wide as I listened.

"…the Devil wants his golden fiddle back?"

The buzzing answered. I reached up and rubbed my brow my face as it confirmed it. I muttered in a Southern lilt.

"…well, I told him once, that son of a gun', I'm the best that's evah' been…I'll be thar'."

I snapped the phone closed and slid it into my pocket as I stood up. I nearly went ghost out of second nature before I noticed the way Wasp was staring at me. She was holding an open magazine but her narrowed eyes were tilted at me, I noticed in my sudden panic that she had Tucker's eyes.

"…_what,_ was _that_ about?"

On a reflex I rubbed my neck, trying to pull something out of the other end of my anatomy.

"Um…that was…a codeword! Kirby's grandmother is off her rocker, they need me to get out there and help."

Her jade eyes stayed narrowed as she slowly nodded, obviously not believing a word.

"Riight…well, we'll clean up here after we're done. You better get down there and kick some ass."

I stood behind my chair, staring blankly as she went back to her magazine without an explanation. While her clueless fiancé kept writing block letters on the application, smart enough to ask what we were talking about. I raised a finger and opened my mouth to ask something. After an afterthought, I let my hand fall back down to my waist, shaking my head to myself and sprinting out the door and down the steps. I had to take the bike part of the way instead of 'the scenic route', but I got the job done by nightfall.

What happened? That wasn't a code-phrase on the phone. That is exactly what happened, word for word. Long story short, some guy walked into the studio and mentioned some green guy with a fiddle hanging around a playground, challenging people to a fiddle contest for their soul. Well, he challenged the wrong guy for the second time. I know that song by heart. Went without a hitch, not worth talking about. Maybe a ghost will rip off Mortal Kombat and I can pull off a Fatality next time, that's one of the franchises I haven't ripped off yet.

It was on the way home, when things got heavy.

I don't mean interesting or unique. I mean something so well-known and documented that most people put it in the back of their minds until it happens. The second I heard it from a radio playing in the now empty park, I had an old memory whiplash me from seven years back. Not a good one.

Later, Six Minutes to Midnight

I'm not sure how long I'd been slumped back at my desk, my eyes burning onto the computer screen that provided most of the light in the darkened room. My hours-long trance was broken by the sounds of footsteps. At the first sound I felt adrenaline gush out behind my eyes, knowing I had been alone in the house. But when the footsteps took on a rhythmic, almost musical beat I slouched back into my seat as the sudden energy surge made my hands shake. Soon enough the steps were right outside my doorway, I couldn't see who it was both because the entire house was darkened and because I wasn't looking in that direction. A light, harsh whisper drifted into the room.

"…that _carga_ couldn't even fit in a…"

I heard it cut short as the speaker saw me cemented at my desk in the dark, my profile cutting straight at the screen without blinking. Her tone changed from tired and beaten, to alert yet confused.

"Alan! What's going on?"

My eyes didn't leave the screen as I heard her drop her bag onto the carpet and stride into my room, quickly standing behind my chair as she tried to see what had me in this state. It probably only got worse. I'd been staring for close to three hours at what looked, and was, just a group of picture windows on my desktop. Each image wastthe same shape and pose. About ten little pictures lined up, all of them school portraits ranging from late grade school to high school. Most of the students were scowling at the camera, one even baring her teeth. The rest were either blank-looking or faking smiles like their classmates. Just a bunch of kids who didn't like their pictures taken.

"…who are…"

I cut her off, my voice a bit raspy from not using it in twelve hours.

"…Vlad's volunteers…"

My vision blurred slightly, causing me to finally lower my eyes from the blue-lit monitor. I reached up one shaking hand to rub my eyes as she leaned right over the back of my seat to get a closer look at them.

"They're…just kids."

I nearly laughed. I would have, but at the time I just felt blank. I stated in a flat tone.

"That's what the morgue workers said…"

I felt her grab my shoulder as she shot forward slightly, I turned to the side slightly to see her gaping at the portraits in pure disbelief. I reached up and tapped a barely steady finger against the first, a tanned boy with black-brown hair clamped to both sides of his head and a piercing though his chin.

"Keith Krennal…found in the wreckage of a building that just exploded by itself. Val tested the area, found traces of ecto-blast materials. A few girls later confessed he'd threatened them with some odd weapons."

I decided to save Danny's involvement for later, tapping the next portrait. This one was a pale, pretty girl with mouse-blonde hair, a clear complexion but she was glaring at the camera like the hater of society she was.

"Sarah Richards…planted an explosive in the stage at a pep rally. The survivors of the blast didn't last long either. Forensics guessed they'd been hit with either a flamethrower or shrapnel, my guess is an ecto-Glock like Keith had. She's still on the wanted list, disappeared off the scene."

Kirby shrunk back away from the screen, covering her mouth with both hands as I pointed down to the next row, at a more recent case.

"Brendan Jerrell. Not a school case this time, assumed to have been involved in a small chain of unusual homicides before his sudden death. They figured suicide, they found the body after Masters Senior came to speak at his school."

I heard some gasping noises from behind my chair, I realized she wasn't ready for it all so I cut the presentation short to spin around and quickly grab her by her shoulders before she fell to her knees, I could see in the dark how pale she'd grown. I stood up, easing her onto the edge of the bed.

"…you've seen the news, right?"

After a minute of deep breathing while she stared at the floor, she nodded slightly.

"Yeah…the school shooting…oh God…oh, God…"

Her shock had shifted into total disbelief. As I sat back in my chair, she reached up to rub her temples as she took it all in. I noticed she was dressed in a black leotard with a pair of jeans on over it, and judging by how she had her ponytail braided to her neck she'd been at the studio overtime. I faced her from across the isle between my desk and the chair, waiting for her to ask the question I knew was coming.

"…Vlad…did that?"

I closed my eyes, nodding slowly.

"Started it, technically…it matches up with the pattern…I looked up Keith after Val mentioned him. I had a hunch there was more than one, but not this many."

Her head shot up out of her hands, I nearly recoiled as her nearly glowing emerald eyes lit up in the near-darkness.

"Pattern?"

I swallowed my fear, regaining my composure from her eyes before answering.

"The police aren't giving essential details…the witnesses said the kid was from a higher-class family…and to seal the deal, that same high school had a teacher who had an organization on the side, an open cause against private funds aiding federal investigations. Vlad used to donate a few million annually to some FBI branches. Bribes. That teacher…was the first victim, but he survived with a flesh wound."

Kirby had now assumed a similar posture to the one I'd been using all night. Straight back in her seat, eyes forward and ready to analyze. Her state of shock had disappeared in record time. She's not the coolest customer but the daughter of a detective…

"…that tipped you off, didn't it? You've been looking for other cases all night."

My flat-line mouth loosened slightly, the closest thing to a smile I'd have for a while.

"Flawed minds think alike…all these cases are cut with the same knife. A first the targets were people close to Danny, for some reason they always made it. He must have stepped in a few times, a couples times here the kid was stopped before any casualties."

She nodded, her eyes cutting over my shoulder at the line-up of underage killers the same way I'd looked at them. Looking at their eyes. It's all in the eyes.

"…Sam never told you…if she did, you would've been on this since day one…"

I resisted another smile at how she caught on, despite being covered in dried sweat and showing visible signs of exhaustion from running who knows how many dance classes. Where'd she learn this? Her dad kept his to himself around her and her mom, only letting it out when he taught me.

"Dang right…I'm starting to think she never knew about this. Think this over. Three out of four times it was a school. Sam's a teacher. Danny probably knew more than I do, but he never told her to keep her calm. Sam loved teaching, and he loved Sam."

She jerked her chin down slightly in a small nod, her straining ponytail bouncing against her flexed back. She asked.

"…who's that on the end? Second row."

I slowly glanced over at the last portrait. I knew exactly which one she meant, and why she was looking at it. Tucked into the corner of the killing collage, was a boy slouching his bony shoulders over in front of the camera with his eyes off to the side as if he wanted to be somewhere else. He had a thin, slightly pale face tucked under greasy black hair. His eyes were a slight shade of blue, contrasting both his skin and the gray tee short he wore compared to a collar shirt or button-down most kids wore that day. I knew why she'd asked, he bore a striking resemblance to my father. But on a much closer glance, the eye and hair color was all that connected the two.

"…there's the oddball…this is a kid Vlad would have sent a care package to in a minute, he never got the chance though. It was the last time Vlad tried anything like this, until today at that school."

By now, we were both staring at the pale boy's image. I with a slightly bored frown. Her with an aching suspicion that she had to either let wild or put to sleep. I continued.

"Bullying case, just like the rest. Martial arts expert, got him a lot of crap from the other kids all through grade school, faculty never handled it. They beat him around a lot, he couldn't fight back. It'd get him kicked out. To top it off, he was in special ed. This was taken in junior high, right around when he started shifting from a recluse to a possible time bomb."

I took a shallow breath and continued.

"His school wasn't a target, though. He was. He was connected to Danny's survivors, if he got involved in all this Vlad would have the last word against Danny's memory. Just kicking a gravestone."

My cool manner melted as my audience suddenly asked.

"…what happened? Sounds like easy pickings."

I nodded, continuing after another moment of recovery.

"…he got better…more or less. Got his life back on track, Vlad must have never had the chance to give him his pitch."

She scoffed from behind me, still furrowing her brow at the last picture, trying to figure out why she had asked in the first place.

"Got better…the kid was on a one-way lane, how did he make it? He didn't deserve it at all, but I've been to high school, it would have gotten worse."

I shrugged, adding one last bit of trivia.

"Eh…he wandered into a boxing gym when he got lost downtown…some nice old trainer gave him cab fare home, told him to come back any time. He did."

I slowly closed my eyes, bracing myself a few seconds before a soprano yelp rang out through the house, a few inches from my ear. Kirb' just loudly called out her exclamation three more times before clamping a hand over her mouth and pulling away from the desk and standing against my bed, staring in expected shock as her eyes boggled at the sight before her. Me, turned in my chair to face her and raising an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to come back to the Milky Way. And right over my shoulder, my junior high portrait stuck onto a collage of killers and would-be killers.

I held back a sigh as she caught herself, dropping her hands from her mouth and crossing her arms. She shifted her slight weight over to one long leg, tossing her hair over one shoulder with a bored head toss, suddenly acting as casual as possible. Rather forcibly.

"…I _knew_ it was you…it was all the other stuff that got to me."

I let the sigh out, closing my eyes and rubbing my forehead with one sweat-slick hand.

"…just say it…"

I heard her squeal out, suddenly not so casual. Not exactly scared or shocked, either. She was _laughing. _

"…you were a _shrimp! _No offense, I like little guys…but geez, how could a cute little guy like that…"

I opened my mouth to finish the sentence, but she got it out before I could. And I didn't agree on the answer.

…grow into a rugged, stone-wolf with enough meat on his bones to feed an Amish family?"

Slowly, very slowly, I closed my mouth and let my eyelids rise up, peering out and seeing in the thin blue lighting that she was standing there calmly with her hands spread from her waist as if stating her end-all opinion on the weather. I slowly told her, finding my words as I went.

"…Kirby…I can handle you scaring off girls who give me the eye in clubs…I can handle your…fashion tastes…I can even handle the fact you think fake-out make-outs sound useful. But if you ever say that again, I'll tell the tabloids myself that their new diva has a mortal fear of ponies."

Her jaw dropped, her teeth shining in the near-darkness as she muttered.

"You wouldn't…"

I waved one hand with a bold air, the tension of the room long gone.

"I would. And what the heck does 'stone-wolf' mean?"

Her shoulders popped up and slumped back down.

"…eh, like a stone fox? But a guy?"

I sighed, spinning in my chair back towards the monitor and closing that haunting collage as I did so.

"…well, your little habits of making up compliments just killed the mood. Hit the lights, I'm wrapping up for the night."

I heard her toe-shoes shuffle along the carpet and a click sounded as the lights flared to life, causing me to squint after my exile from light. As I shielded my scorched eyes with one hand I heard my now tired comrade drawl.

"…and I'd rather not have my fans know that horses hate me…"

I rolled my eyes, even as they adjusted to the presence of light.

"You still have that? You're like twenty, why are you still afraid of horses?"

I watched her step out into the hallway and pull one of my black duffel bags off the rug, it was filled with everything she'd brought to run their school for the day.

"_Hey_! I'm not afraid of them! I don't know why, but horses hate me. They just freak whenever they see me."

I shook my head to myself, turning off my computer and scoffing.

"…for no reason…horses just go nuts and try to trample you…"

She grunted as she dragged her bag down the hall to her dark doorway.

"I don't get it either! I love animals, why do those stupid things want me dead?"

I heard her close her door to change her clothes and shower, I commented to my empty room.

"Well, maybe if she stopped giving them unflattering nicknames they wouldn't want to kill her…"

…I knew how the horses felt.

But Kirby's little outburst about my awkward phase as a teen shrouded the real story here. I've been thinking it over all night, along with my invisible brush with death. I would have been, and probably was, the ideal target for Plamius. Walt didn't just _help_ me turn my life around before I ended it myself. He saved it. And I never thanked him for it. I never had the chance. He died before I could win him that medal.

The Next Morning

I heard the barn door open from the loft. I recognized the footsteps and kept scrubbing the fabric with the old brush. Seconds later, Kirby vaulted off the top of the ladder onto the floor in front of me, panting as she clutched her midsection through a tight red tee shirt that had been torn in half to create a belly shirt, it's been unbearably hot out at night lately. She didn't take the time to see what I was doing as she blurted out.

"Sam called your cell! Walker and his boys! Southwest of here, near the mall! You gotta'…!"

She let her frantic warning slow down and finally stop as she looked at what I'd been doing when she ran in. I was in full ghost form, with my jacket spread out on the ground in front of where I was kneeling, trying to scrub out a still wet, neon-green stain the size of a small cat splattered on the back of it. Yeah, I can actually take off the jacket. I had a tee shirt on underneath it, but for some reason I think the jacket looks better than a stretchy gray shirt that shows off my build much more, but makes me look a bit too human than my liking.

A few feet from where I sat scrubbing, was a neat little pile of trophies from the supernatural war-zone Sam had called to warn me of. Visible on the top was half a dozen of those green nightsticks Walker's thugs carry, along with a few of their helmets, belts and even their badges and armor. As Kirby took the scene in, the blood left her face and she commented in a much less panicked tone.

"…wow, that was quick…"

With that she plopped herself down next to me, picking up a nightstick and holding it in her hand, on the end you're supposed to hit the guy with. I stopped scrubbing to reach over, flip it over and place the handle in her tan fingers before going back to trying to get the ecto-gack off my jacket with an old horse brush and some water. Usually my clothes clean themselves when I shift, but I'm worried some of this stuff will hang around and ruin my normal clothes.

This big stain is the last of it. Let's just say those ghost-guards don't fare well in smaller numbers. I just made them split up to look for me after a few taunts on the run, and took them down as they wandered off from the group. One by one, until the last ones just found themselves suddenly alone, and lost in a heavily wooded forest in the middle of an eerie silence. They flew off screaming that the boss couldn't do this, neither will they. On an unrelated note, those same guys probably found the movie 'Predator' scary. So did I, but now I know why those things in the movies did it all in the first place. It was fun.

Kirby lazily swung the baton a few times before mentioning.

"…I'd ask how you slept…but…"

She shrugged, avoiding the matter. I nodded and kept scrubbing, glad she didn't ask more about my unexplained inability to sleep. She then said.

"Wasp left a note in my bedroom. One of her bridesmaids joined the Peace Corps, told me I was her backup."

I stopped scrubbing, slowly turning my head to stare at the girl as she thoughtlessly played with the police weapon. I asked in disbelief.

"…you're a bridesmaid now?"

She shrugged.

"_Conjeturo."_

I tossed the brush aside, abandoning my jacket to just sit back against one of my arms and stare at her from under my silver bangs.

"Two months ago, Wasp and Aron didn't even know I had a cousin who spoke English. Now you're a part of the wedding. How'd you do that?"

She tossed the nightstick back into the pile, laughing a little at the question. She went to retort when both of us spun our heads at a long bleep, sounded like stereo feedback. A second later and a pile of hooded sweatshirts was swept to the side as if knocked out of the way by a foot, I pulled my hand back to my side as the green energy faded from my palm. Revealed to have been hiding behind it, currently pressed up against the wall of the loft, was what looked like a toy robotic spider. It was about the size of my hand, silver plated with a distinctive green 'F' stamped onto its back. Its detailed head was currently shoved up against the wooden wall, while a speaker in its behind buzzed to itself as my cousin and I sat there staring at it with wide eyes. We nearly jumped off our behinds into the air as a voice cut from the hidden speaker.

"_Sherri!_ Gimme' the remote, I'll do it!"

An identical voice responded.

"…hey, it was my idea to keep an eye on them…"

Kerri shot back, she must not have known she was leaning on the 'broadcast voice' button.

"And you ended up pressing the camera into the wall! And now you're saying you can't understand what they're saying! And mom says _I'm_ the twin who didn't get enough air?"

"…they're speaking _Spanish!_ How the hell am I supposed to understand that?"

As Sherri let this out through the speaker in the Fenton Spider-Spy, I remembered something. Kirby and I both are bilingual. Out of habit, we sometimes have conversations in both languages. Some of the conversations I've told you about with Kirby or her family, have been entirely in Spanish, I translated for your sake. I just kind of forgot that some people, including the other Fentons, probably had no clue what we were saying around them. Slowly, I glanced over with my ghostly green eyes and met Kirby's emerald ones, nodding before I calmly cocked a gun with two fingers and fired a tiny energy speck straight at the spider. It collided head-on, knocking the toy back with barely enough force to cause it to shut off.

"…well, I guess Tucker got them curious…pity they have no clue how to spy on people."

My cousin, still a bit jumpy from seeing the spy-gadget hiding behind her pile of sweatshirts, mumbled.

"…if they had the camera working they'd have seen you in ghost form…with a bunch of ghost weapons. And if they weren't ignorant bigots who hate Spanish they'd have heard us talking about this ten times over."

Normally I'd correct her about my sisters taking after my mom racially. They're my sisters. I know it's not their fault. After they graduated a month or so back they started dying their black hair brown, just like Mom's. And now, they were trying to spy on Kirby and me because Tucker gave them one of those speeches of his and they think we know more than they do.

…I have to trace news archives of major domestic disasters and figure out likely criminal motives with nothing but a cheap computer and a good memory, and those two just steered a sixty thousand dollar piece of spy equipment straight into a wall so the camera was blocked? And Kerri was pressing the speaker button so we could hear them? I thought Jack Fenton's genetics could only pass onto male members of this family…I learned something today.

Seriously though, I was never known for good luck. Heck, remember that time I went looking for Sam in that basement and thought the portal switch was a light switch? Wait…well, stupid as it sounds, you get the point. I'm not a lucky guy. I've been getting some good breaks as the Phantom, and I'm ready and waiting for a bad one. Nobody can go through life without a single bad twist.

This all _started_ with a few bad twists, technically. First Walt, and then stumbling onto this little family secret of ours. I know things are going to get worse. But where's Vlad? And what is he doing while I'm off killing time? Danny had to take on some rich Packers fan with a weird hobby. I have to take down a multi-murderer with legal immunity and the ability to flip my life off the table if I let something slip. With inferior powers. And a secret to keep, the fact I'm not Danny.

…Walt would turn this into a joke. He taught me how to turn _everything_ into a joke, makes things easier. He lost a leg in a car accident, had to end his fighter career at his peak and told everyone that peg-legs make great tax write-offs. Well, I'm not seeing a punch-line after this.

Later, Around Noon

"And that Fisher boy just needs a kick to the…"

"SAM!"

My grandmother's endless lecture on the kids in her homeroom stopped abruptly, I was on the verge of crushing the small phone as I paced the empty stretch of dirt behind the barn, holding the phone to my ear. Once I had her attention, I started my well-practiced speech.

"Sam…things up here have…um…"

"Spit it out, Alan."

I winced, she always had the upper hand.

"…I think you should take some time off!"

Silence. Three seconds later, her voice exploded from the silver dial right into my ear as I pulled back to protect my long-term hearing.

"Time off! It took me four months to get these kids to remember my name, and you're telling me to take time off. You have everything in order up there, what would my being back at school have anything to do with it?"

…he never told her…I felt sweat bead down my back as I muttered.

"Um…you have a point…"

A lie. What was I supposed to tell her, the man who killed her husband had targeted schools in the past and Danny didn't tell her? Was this why Danny had stormed off to face him in the first place? He knew Sam was in the line of fire, he couldn't tell her to give up teaching…was that why he wanted to end it all? Just walked into whatever Vlad had set up for him?

"…it was nice of you to call, but I have papers to grade. Keep your nose clean."

With that she hung up, leaving me with a silent cell phone to my ear, a sweat-soaked shirt from the effort to stand up to her verbally, and a new angle to look at this from. Good versus Evil. Old versus New. And now, Love versus Safety.

I snapped the phone shut, slipping it into my pocket as I walked up into the house and into the air conditioning. I kicked off my dust-collecting shoes before ascending the first few stairs towards my room, stopping with a foot on each step as my mother called from the kitchen.

"Alan, mind helping your sister move some shelves later? It's not like you have a date to catch, might as well make yourself useful."

I felt my hand clench itself into a fist, cracking its own joints as I called back in a believably calm, but false tone.

"…Mom, I have some other things to take care of…"

I heard her snort to herself as she turned on the dishwasher. I ignored it and went up back up the steps. I heard her sigh.

"No wonder he can't get a girlfriend…"

…why, of all my flaws and personal issues, do people keep bringing that up? I managed to get myself up to my room and sanctuary in record time, locking the door behind me and collapsing onto the cold bedclothes as my sweat chilled under the air conditioning. I had about ten seconds of solitude before Kirby stepped out of my closet with an armful of clothes she was stealing from it. I didn't bother lifting my head up yell at her. I just laid there, tired of it all. I heard that familiar, yet always original voice chime as she unlocked my door to let herself out.

"…you need a break…"

I grunted as she shifted the clothes to her other arm to undo the new bolt I'd put on the door, to keep her out and protect my clothes.

"Seriously. Take the bike, go into town and just kick back. Or why don't you just take a day off and just fly around or something?"

This, got my head up off the bed. I flashed her a disapproving look from where I was sprawled as she twisted the bolt open. She shot back a temper-melting smile. As she closed the door behind her, my eyes wandered over to the window. Blue skies, with a few clouds rolling in the wind out toward the city. A single thought rolled through my head. My days are numbered, right? I don't have time to just do the thing I enjoy the most, gliding around like a hawk and watching the world float by. I also don't have enough time _not_ to…

Author's Notes

...not my best chapter, I know... you may have guessed this one reflects on how Alan is coping with it all back home. Not well. The mentions of Vlad's 'volunteers' is just symbolism, not a political view on industry or the state of the nation's schools. I just feel only something pure evil could drive good people to something that far. Or some one. Vlad didn't make them do it, he gave them the materials and let them do the rest. He can't be caught or even connected to it. This shows not only his disregard for human life, but his cunning. The fact Alan could have been another name in the papers...Alan can't believe his own luck. Next chapter, more ghosts. I'm worried the plot of this story is drifting away from the format of Danny Phantom too much to be considered in league with the show. I let my characters develop too much, it cuts back on plot.


	20. Chapter 20

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

(Pre-Note: Not much to worry about here. Some impossible situations handled in a parody manner. The only thing that may disturb or offend is hinted mentions of a female support device. And I just spent an hour rewriting some of this chapter to flow better and actually come off as plot or non-plot. No serial killers or family secrets this time, just a really bad day for Alan.)

I felt my ribs press into each other when I hit the mat, managing not to grunt as my weight settled on the ground and the pain went from a bit sharp to overwhelming. I struggled to move my arms as my attackers whispered at each other over my broken form. I growled as I pushed my torso off the ground with one arm.

"…again…"

I heard a familiar voice sharply inhale in understandable confusion as I staggered to my feet, wiping the blood off the collar of my white sparring outfit and checking to see if any had gotten on the padded floor of my aunt's dojo.

"...Alan…we have to stop…"

By 'we', she meant to refer to herself and four of her top students who were currently standing in a loose circle around where I'd fallen, a black strip of fabric tying each of their identical outfits closed. My own gi was tied with a frayed brown belt, the rank I'd achieved when I left this school to explore boxing instead of traditional martial arts.

Her assistants in this task were all around my age or older, three college age guys with similar frat haircuts and pierced ears despite their impressive discipline as they awaited my modest-sized aunt's next direction. There was also a light-haired but very intelligent girl probably older than my sisters who managed to keep up with the rest of us despite her age. The four students and the teacher all looked winded, it'd been close to two hours judging by the sunlight filtering through the window at the far wall.

I looked slightly worse. My white gi was nearly gray with heavy sweat, my hair was flat against my head and my face was a mess of blood from a number of small cuts which had further been struck head-on with a poorly dodged high kick or a hand strike. Never a punch, I give myself that much credit. As my aunt told me they had an appointment to prepare for, both her favorite students and myself knew what she meant. I needed to stop, no matter how much I wanted to go on.

I simply bowed my head formally towards her, repeating the ritual to each of my sparring partners without a bad thought in my head. After we'd finished the post-combat ritual my aunt walked off to her office with her thin shoulders held high to both look formal, and to hide the fact she'd just watched her nephew push himself to the brink of insanity.

My aunt Maria has seen a lot of things in her life and her career as a martial arts competitor and teacher. When Walt first introduced himself to her as a formality, he later commented that woman could beat the crap out of him. Walt was a cruiserweight contender for the title when he had his accident, and yet somehow I believed him. This is why I had done what I had those last few hours. To become stronger.

I managed to walk without a limp into the changing room, pulling off the outfit as if it were a bikini wax. As I shrugged into my street clothes the three male students walked in, still in their uniforms. I nodded casually as I dug through my bag for a water bottle. I heard some one mumble.

"Uh…hey, can we ask you something?"

I hard the distinctive sound of an elbow hitting a stomach, another voice continued as I kept ruffling through my bag.

"...if it's not too much trouble, I…we mean."

I shrugged, zipping the bag closed and glancing over at them with a shrug.

"Shoot."

The third took his turn and asked.

"…what are you?"

My eyebrows jumped an inch. I would have felt an adrenaline rush if I hadn't drained it all sparring. They saw this and the shorter one quickly elaborated before I became defensive.

"…like a Marine, Special Ops, a SEAL?"

I relaxed somewhat, lifting my bag over my shoulder with an arm that couldn't flex a finger without cramping all the way to the tendon. They were asking if I was in the service.

"…what makes you think that? My tattoo isn't exactly military issue…"

The tallest one, standing with a good inch over me shrugged, glancing at both of his friends.

"Um…well, you walk in here and tell the Sensai you want to have a bunch of belts take you full contact…"

I faked a chuckle, trying to come off as casual.

"Just exercise."

"…Dude, it took us an hour and a half to just get you on the ground…I'm a MMA contender, Ted's going out for the Corps, Jimmy's been at this since he was three, and Sharon can take any of us. Then you walk in…"

The brown-haired lad just cut it short suddenly.

"…who the heck' are you?"

…thankfully, they weren't demanding mysterious information like any vigilant pedestrian would. They would simply like to know who I was, and why I subjected myself to that kind of beating. And where I learned to fight, and where could they buy some. As I stepped towards the entryway, I simply said with a painful shrug.

"I'm the Sensei's nephew. Alan Fenton, I was a boxer."

Their bewildered expressions snapped upwards into groans of realization as I walked out. I waved with my free hand as they nudged each other saying they thought that's what it was. The moment I was out the glass front door and down the block, I let out a light laugh to myself despite the pain it created in my jaw and face. Those guys could take home a few trophies and break boards with their heads, but living in a fraternity takes ten points off your IQ by the thumb. Then again, coming from a guy who keeps putting himself in suicidal situations for training purposes can't preach about intelligence, now can I?

One sore train ride later and I was limping down the stretch of dirt towards the ranch next to a nearly dead corn field. Now that no one was around I could limp, and show signs of being in excruciating pain. In fact by the time I was half-way home my other leg had started throbbing right below the knee joint, and I ended up sitting on my bag by the deserted road clutching my bruised ribs in order to breath.

Once I could breathe on my own I glanced up at the slightly orange sky, checking to see if any cars of farmers were out for a stroll. Six double-checks later and I couldn't convince myself not to do it. I stood up, bracing myself against my bag and using the last of the strength in my left arm to snap my fingers. I nearly sighed at the cold feeling that spread from the center of my spine up to my hair in the span of a second, like a cold shower. Ice cold, with too much water pressure but after a workout like that'd I'd appreciate being dipped in carbonite.

Within that icy second, I got my second wind of sorts. My burning, tightly stretched muscles were still swollen and aching but in my very bones I felt a new awareness come to life, covering my physical pain with a slight mental buzz that always accompanied ghost energy. Just a buzz, mind you. I'm not intoxicated above the legal limit like Plasmius, it's just a bit easier talking to girls and finding jokes funny in ghost form. At least I can fly instead of risking innocent people behind the wheel of a car. Please note I'm writing this under the influence of an early concussion.

I smiled to myself, looking down at my dark sleeves and horribly tanned hands before picking up my bag and watching it disappear into thin air, things are lighter when they're virtually invisible. I then focused my tired thoughts into a single mental image, feeling the chilled sensation once again as I myself disappeared. I glanced down at the trainer-shaped indentations in the grass below me, sighing.

"…not as fun as heat vision, but it works…"

A short few seconds later, I was flying parallel to the notoriously flat farms surrounding our New Age-wannabe farm. I could have probably made the trip in a few seconds, really. This is me we're talking about. My flight-speed is probably the only thing I have over Danny. But out of personal preference I was just drifting along at a few miles an hour with my bag slung over my back and my eyes calmly admiring the mostly brown, with an occasional yellow green landscape while humming an off-tune melody.

Lately the only leisure time I'm given is a couple hundred feet off the ground. You know about my being Aron's best man on the upcoming big day, I honestly don't know how he expects me to give a speech at the reception. You also know about my part time job. I'm still trying to invent a name for it. Paranormal handyman? Supernatural odd-job guy? Troubled protagonist fulfilling classic vengeance fulfillment while coping with an alignment with a moral but powerless system of justice? Professional gluteus maximus gift-wrapper? And they think I'm capable of giving a _speech?_

I rolled my eyes to myself, lazily barrel-rolling onto my back with my bag resting on my aching middle section as I kept flying. I was invisible, so despite it being just sunset I figured it was safe to let my guard down. How could I have kept it up, I had my hands behind my head and my eyes closed while kicking my feet slightly like I was swimming. If you can do that while defying gravity, _and _be on high-alert I'd like to know how.

Looking back, if something mention-worthy hadn't happened the moment I started to relax, I'd be worried that there's a glitch in the…okay, I can only make fun of so many more franchises before I'm sued, I'm going to choose my words sparingly. I was coasting along, and heard an odd sound coming from the direction I'd just flown from. It was a high-pitched whine that seemed to carry on the wind, despite there being next to no wind. Thinking it was just another falcon challenging me to a race, I just grunted and cracked open one eye as I leaned my neck up. My other eye snapped open as I saw that it wasn't exactly a local bird of prey with self esteem.

…it looked, I'll spare you all the fancy details about fearful appearance it being a polished silver, like an old sub torpedo with four smaller ones strapped to its sides and a not exactly streamlined bust of a wolf's head instead of a nose-cone. I'd give you a big poetic deal, but the thing was thirty yards behind me and not slowing down. The first thought that went through my skull.

"…oh, crap…"

Second thought.

"…I thought I'd never have to dodge such an overused plot device…"

Regardless of how ridiculous my life had become, I quickly tossed my bag off me towards the road to lighten my weight before swinging my feet under me and shooting straight up, out of the path of the rather overdone weapon of mass destruction. It shot by at a speed rivaling that of an underpaid city cab, the eerie whine flicking by as well. I floated vertically and watched from my higher position as it just kept going, straight off along the cornfields and thankfully nowhere near the direction of the house. I just shook my head slowly.

"Some poor deranged scientist spent his kids' lunch money just detailing that thing…"

I narrowed my eyes, watching as the now distant grey shape became wider, then back to narrow again.

"…and it's coming back…"

I loudly yelped as I dove down ten yards, out of the way of the same canoe-sized projectile as it shot off back into the distance for another U-turn. I spun weightlessly, watching for it to turn again with wide eyes.

"It's always a homing missile. No matter how outrageous and impossible, it's _always_ a homing missile…who writes this crap? Did God hire a team of monkeys with laptops while he…"

I shot back up suddenly as it shot past like an oversized bullet once again, flapping the collar of my jacket from how close it had been.

"…okay, there goes my train of thought…"

This time around, I shot right after it in a dead chase. It was still going straight from its momentum, giving me a good look at it for a few seconds before it started to turn and I veered off to avoid a sideswipe.

This wasn't a stereotypical rocket. Sure, the butt end of it was currently blasting a green flame. But the four rockets strapped to it, two on the front and back, worked alternately. When it veered right to get at me, the front left booster ignited. When it spun around to follow me, the rear left one nearly exploded and sent it into a 180. This thing was either locked onto me or remote controlled. And it was maneuverable enough to get the job done. I threw my shoulder into a right turn that would have gotten through a parlor of a doll house, looking over my other shoulder to see what it did to keep up.

The back left rocket just flickered, and its open-mouthed nose-cone was once again going straight at my legs. Consider now, the fact we're going a couple hundred and I'm still invisible. So this thing also was capable of locking onto a ghost. Most likely, colliding with a non-solid object like myself would yield the same effect as hitting a spray-paint target in Nevada. Not pretty.

How had it not turned me into bacon yet? Well, I give myself the acknowledgement of being fast and capable of decent maneuvering. I've only clocked a few hundred hours at three Gs, but I can assure you I'm better than a kid with a pair of moon-boots. Especially since they suck. You just bounce on the soles, they can't really get off the ground. I'd love to comment on some other childhood toys, but the thing just jammed both rear boosters and was gaining on me. I sped up also, wondering how its sensors worked. Of course my mind skipped to the fact it had a finely-molded wolf-head on it. Geez, why not paint a big pair of eyes on it and pass out sticks?

I smirked slightly, turning to peer over my shoulder at the thing as I pressed my ankles together to get a slight boost. Thankfully for this thing we were in an open horizon while the sun was just starting to set. If this thing tracked me down in a city skyline, it'd be dead. On the other hand, so would a number of people in the building it'd crash into. Yeah, scratch that last thought.

I stared at the fur-ridged head of the thing, noticing how strangely in-place it seemed on the otherwise ultra-modern steel body. I would have commented how it looked like a hockey team mascot, but instead I pulled off my jacket and tossed it into the air beside me as I made a slight turn, watching as it shot out of my grasp and straight onto the lupine head of the missile.

I nearly yelled out in early victory, when suddenly those silver-forged fangs were bared at me again as we made a shallow descent to about three hundred feet up, going who knows how fast. I raised both eyebrows, noticing a thin robotic tendril extending from the things mouth with what looked like a ten-inch razor blade on the end. As it snapped back into its compartment in the figure-head's mouth, I muttered in pure disbelief as I saw two black shapes in the orange beyond of the sky hang in mid-air like dropped handkerchiefs as I flew backwards miles away from them.

"…you have got to be kidding me…and that was my only jacket!"

My voice came out distorted, either from the altitude or the speed I was clocking. I flipped back over so my front was facing the mile-far ground as I wondered what to do next. This thing couldn't catch me, but it wasn't going to give up either. Eventually people are going to wonder where I went, and why there's a Patriot missile freaking out over the house all the time. And I was hungry. I highly doubt the average fast-food outlet could serve a drive-through customer going 350. And even if they could I had lost track of which direction the ground is, how could I hold my drink and not spill it?

As I pondered the question of to get my metallic pursuer here a large order of fries to bribe it to go away, I had an odd thought about the way it maneuvered itself with those jets. I thought it over, while propelling myself another twenty miles over the endless checkerboard that is my home state from above, and figured I was just high enough to do it. I mean both the fact I'm high enough to hide in a cloud, and the thinning oxygen is giving me a buzz. Either way, I was high.

So as I once again just kept flying to avoid the massive super-weapon on my tail, I once again threw my shoulder to the right and took a 90-degree turn. And kept into it. I just pulled into a wide donut around the missile, it had slowed down and was heading for my right side. I kept going right, keeping it inside an invisible circle like a dog trying to catch its own tail. It has a wolf head on it, get it? Dog? Wolf? Christ, I hold back twenty 'dogfight' jokes and you people don't even give me credit for a good line.

I sped up, grooving the circuit as it kept trying to get me from the side. I must have gotten around about twenty times in the span of half a minute. I wasn't exaggerating about how fast I'd been going to out-fly this thing. Right as I started to relax in my little circle of safeness, a sudden shockwave hit my right side and sent my flailing about a hundred feet. Remember this is a couple hundred feet off the ground, large distances are just paces that high up. The shockwave broke my concentration and cost me my invisibility.

By the time I caught my balance, so to speak, and slowed down to a sideways drift, I was turned to where I'd trapped the stupid thing with my eyes locked onto a small green cloud hanging in the air, slowly being blown apart and revealing nothing left of the metal structure that had carried the blast. My little tail-chasing idea worked. Those thrusters had went wild trying to straighten the thing (…that's the only term I could place on it) out, and in turn crossed the programming and set off the detonator by default.

For the first time since the little duel had begun, I stopped moving. I hung there, a few hundred feet in the air, the sun setting in all its glory, and I was just hanging in the air with my arms crossed in a sweat-soaked grey tee shirt and black pants.

Panting like a greyhound.

I was still sore from the sparring session. And now I just had to outmaneuver a ridiculously capable and completely unexplained missile that had come at me a mile from my house. So my ghost energy was fading, causing me to slowly float towards the ground like a sinking feather. My body was just one conjoined muscle ache. And my brain was a question mark stuffed into my head next to a wooden crate labeled 'Boxing' and a little card case stamped 'Breathing'.

What happened next? As I let gravity push me down to the by now unfamiliar planet below me, I reached into the pocket of my pants and pulled out my phone, hoping it worked a hundred feet in the air. And this area gets terrible reception. I hit speed-dial and pressed it to my buzzing ear, it'd be days before I felt like I wasn't walking on soft sand from those twists and dives. A voice answered surprisingly clear, must be in a good cell.

"Yo?"

I said calmly, faking a sane outlook as I prayed my jacket wasn't gone for good.

"Hey Wasp, can you get your mom on the phone?"

Her tone changed to a probing one one.

"…you book the limo yet?"

I sighed, the fields below me coming into detail as I descended a bit faster to a snail going downhill pace.

"…working on it…now get your mom."

Silence on the line for a few seconds.

"She's out with my dad. What should I tell her?"

…Tucker's not making things any easier on me, does he know that? I bit my tongue to hold back a curse before telling her.

"Yeah…tell her…

My mind wandered to the decoration theme of the missile I'd just overloaded.

"…a dog followed me home, and I think she might know whose it is."

I heard her scratch this on what sounded like cardboard, she must be on speaker phone.

"…got it…hey, you see that thing downtown?"

After a good minute of floating down to the planet like a stone in water, my feet touched down on the dirt road and in part sent flares of pain up my legs. First that 'lesson' with the four college kids, now an aerial chase. Like you wouldn't be a bit cramped. I managed not to wince, my ghost form lending me a slightly higher pain tolerance.

"Just came from there, what happened?"

There was a crunching sound, followed by a garbled voice.

"…fromone rot off a racket…"

I let my green eyes fall closed and sighed.

"Spit out the Fritos and repeat that."

I heard a gulp sound effect. Wasp was never…I'd say feminine, but 'courteous' is a less impossible label for her.

"…some guy shot a rocket or something off his roof…in broad daylight. Scared the heck outta' everyone, he got arrested but they don't know where it went. My mom says he was a ghost hunter, that explains a lot."

I forcefully opened my eyes and titled my neck back to see the quickly dissolving green cloud against the darkening sky. I glanced back down, scanning the flat horizon for any sign of a ranch house.

"…can't say I heard about that…when was this again?"

So, that thing came from the city? No wonder it fizzled out like that, it had to have wasted most of its energy just getting here.

"A few hours ago, should be on the news. Aron needs help picking our floral stuff, catch ya' later."

With that she hung up on me. Leaving me on the side of a road in the middle of a corn field. Actually, that little air tour left me in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't see any houses, and I can't say I know the fields like the back of my calluses. As I stiffly walked down the road towards where I hoped I'd find a sign, or a piece of road-kill. I'd skipped breakfast, sue me.

Strangely enough, I hadn't shifted out of ghost form yet. I was too exhausted mentally to either fly up and find the ranch, or even just change back. The end result, an obvious Halfa dressed in a tee shirt and pants wandering around the farm country wondering if he's seen that scarecrow before. Did Spiderman ever get lost on a farm? He probably just flew away, like any reasonable superhuman would.

About an hour of this later, the sun had disappeared over the horizon and the remaining light was fading fast. And my frantic search for anything resembling a main road had only bore one fruit, I found the bag I'd dropped when I first saw Mr. Missile coming by to ask for some spare change and maybe my explosive demise.

By the time night did finally take hold, I'd decided to take a different course of action that didn't involve calling Kirby and asking her to send out a rescue squad of gap-toothed farmers. I still hadn't worked up enough juice to even hover a bit. So I just found a nice piece of grass and kicked back with my duffel bag under my head, staring at the stars and waiting for either my strength to return or a farmer with poor eyesight to drive by. I doubt anyone would give me a lift sporting white hair and eyes that glow in the dark. Kirby can get rides no problem at all, but that's because of something called 'gender discrimination', Kids.

Why am I telling you how I got lost in the fields overnight with my powers drained? I'm getting to that. And no, that missile's girlfriend didn't fly by and cuss me out for beating up her man. Although once again, the moment I had my eyes closed and my thoughts started to collect, something came by to scramble them again. Never fails.

Picture the back of my eyelids. Now imagine lying there comfortably and just starting to feel strong enough to get moving again, when a voice calls down quite literally from a loudspeaker pointed at your head.

"_Attention, Ghost...Do not attempt to escape_!"

…I was not exactly having a good day by this point. The whole getting lost in the magical land of corn thing is bad enough. Now I had some one who wanted to stuff me in a vacuum tube, and I was too tired to fight back that much. What did I say as I lay there, not opening my eyes in a show of pure boldness?

"…Gotcha…do you mind, I dunno'…buzzing off before I introduce those fancy water guns of yours to the back of your skull at sixty five miles an hour?"

…worked with the last pack of ghost hunters…the megaphone sounded father away now.

"_Um…okay…"_

I heard the distinctive sound of some one whacking another person on the back of the head. Followed by a rather high-pitched whimper, apparently the loudspeaker was now off-limits to the moron who'd been holding it. A female, rather muffled voice called out.

"Hey! You said I get the speaker thingy!"

…I didn't even bother to open my eyes, for a very good reason I went right back to relaxing once I recognized the voice. A clearer, unfiltered version of the previous shot back, trying to whisper but failing.

"…you sounded like a total ditz! You're making us look bad!"

The filtered voice retaliated as I reached up and put my hands under my head, smiling to myself as things fell into the pattern.

"…you did _not_, just call me a ditz!"

There was a loud thud, followed by the sounds of polyurethane plates banging into each other and high-pitched curses that only teenage girls could think of. A few minutes of this later and I felt I had enough relaxation time, sitting up and stretching my arms with a yawn. As I grabbed my bag and stood up, dusting grass seed off my clothes I barely acknowledged the hilarious sight before me.

Sprawled out on the grass under the half-moon's blue light, were two petite-sized girls clad in matching ghost fighting armor. One of them, clad in green, had her helmet off and was trying to shield her eyes while the red-plated one sat on her chest and tried to slap her silly with absolutely no fighting technique.

The helmet-clad girl in red was cursing in a muffled tone, the megaphone she'd been using dropped on the grass next to Sherri's helmet. As I cracked my neck, feeling how rested I felt, the tables turned and suddenly Kerri's helmet was being banged into the grass with Sherri on her back. They used to do this when they were, like, four. And _I'm_ the abnormal Fenton?

They had obviously forgotten the 'sleeping' ghost they'd found lying by the road as each tried to beat the crap out of their genetic double. I slipped my bag over my shoulder, nodding at the pathetic wrestling match while I concentrated on my left hand, seeing if I had it in me.

"…as much as I want to sell tickets for this, they need me back where I came from."

With that a neon-green baseball cap with the White Sox logo on the brim appeared with a flash in my opened palm. I slipped it on and pulled it low over my eyes, nodded at them and walked off into the stalks of corn, going invisible as I did so. A few steps later I shot up into the air over the stalks, looking around from my new point of vision and easily spotting the lights of the Fenton Ranch a few fields over. I shook my head at my navigation ability as I took off for the barn loft at a good clip. I would have saved a lot of time if I just rested from the start. I told myself to look at the bright side.

"…at least I got to do a Shoeless Joe Jackson impression…"

By the time I got myself cleaned up in the barn and walked out to the house, finally human, I could practically smell the food in the kitchen from my day of…eh…work, yeah, work. As I closed the front door behind me, my father jumped down the steps on one leg while he got the other into the pants of his ghost-fighting outfit, panting from the effort. He saw me staring disdainfully at him and explained as he tried to get the waistband to stick.

"Son! Our sensors picked up a ghost wandering around the fields outside!"

I answered with a shrug.

"…great, great. Have fun."

I adjusted my bag strap as I approached the stairwell, where he was still trying to get his pants on. He glared down at his belt buckle as he explained, still thinking I cared.

"…it's a real beauty, we got a surveillance picture…white hair, eyes you can see a mile away, nearly looks alive…your mother believes it's the spirit of a lost African slave on the Underground Railroad."

As he stumbled off to the door, finally getting his outfit closed and hopping into his boots by the door, I couldn't resist and asked.

"…white hair…green eyes…just a bit tan, and you think he was African?"

He opened the door, grabbing a walkie-talkie off his belt.

"Alan, everyone knows ghosts change color when they die. Now, I'm off to help your sisters, manage the base while we're gone."

He stomped off onto the lawn with the door swinging behind him. I watched it swing for a few seconds before just shaking my head and heading straight upstairs to the third floor. Kirby had her door closed, so I went right to my desk to relax with a night of homicide research and memorizing Vlad's list of friends on MySpace.

The second I booted up my desktop and got my shoes off, I felt something in the fabric of time and space was off. I slowly turned my head towards the corner of my desk, and saw a patch of dust with a clean spot in the center shaped exactly like a keychain with two keys attached. I felt my brow twitch. I slowly walked over to my wall before violently banging on it with the side of my fist.

"Kirby! What are you doing in there? And where are the keys to the bike?"

I just _had_ to ask…had to ask…

That Night, 3 AM

I once again tried to convince myself to just hit myself in the head, just to get the feeling out of my system. I slumped against the brick wall of the nightclub/restaurant I'd just spent fifteen minutes in before literally flying out through the ceiling and hiding out behind this fire exit. I rested my head against the worn brick, cursing to myself over letting this happen. As I finally pulled myself together and pushed off the wall to my feet, I noticed a thin wisp of blue mist hanging in the air below my chin.

"…why, won't this day just _end already_!"

I pulled my shoulders out of their slump, straightening my spine in place as I clenched a fist on each side, going ghost and lowering myself into a wide crouch. My jacket had returned, despite it being shredded in mid-air just a few hours before. Right as I was about to take to the air, another voice from behind me broke the mood.

"…That was me, Man…"

I blinked, my work-in-progress badass-glare disappearing as fast as it had came .I looked over my shoulder at the rest of the secluded alley, still crouched down like a certain insect themed and ultra-copyrighted superhero.

Leaning comfortably against the far wall, his neck resting on one raised shoulder like any self-respecting slacker, was a young-adult male clad in a flowing flight jacket with other biker-styled accessories. His gloved fists were tucked into each elbow, his arms crossed as he surveyed my crouched form with a look comparable to a surfer watching a pale tourist walk by in a speedo. Oh, he was also deathly pale with overgrown blonde hair, and green eyes identical to the ones I was currently sporting in my undead look. I stood up quickly from the ground, rubbing my neck casually and pretending he hadn't seen that.

"…Johnny?"

He reached up and made a motion as if tipping a cap that wasn't there.

"At your service. You got problems with your old lady or what?"

I quickly stepped back.

"What?"

He shrugged slightly, closing his eyes as he rolled his head at the club I'd phased out of.

"Me and Kitten were shadowing a couple college kids on the dance floor, we got back together. I heard you banging your head on the bricks, thought some guys were fighting and I could join in."

…what a gentleman…My right eyebrow tightened slightly as I slowly answered, not sure if he was the right person/ghost to talk to.

"Uh…that's _kind of_ the situation…except I'm related to the girl, and it involved the keys to my bike disappearing from the face of the Earth."

His eyes widened out of their nonchalant frown at the mention of the bike keys. Every man who owns anything with two wheels and a motor has that same fear. I explained the situation, not caring how Johnny Thirteen plain out laughed his head off at me.

Lately, Kirby has been trying to get a boyfriend. I know it's just a phase, but her friends don't. That's why they set up a date for her with some law school guy at the club I was currently loitering outside of. She wanted to make a good impression. She also mentioned if this didn't work out she was going back to her music and stalking me. So instead of being herself and scaring him off, she decided to play the normal card. For instance, she heard he's into mystery novels, so she begged me to teach her about Sherlock Holmes.

Ten minutes of her staring and nodding later and she scrapped that for an easier plan.

…that I 'overshadow' her for a section of the date. I go into stealth mode, hang around the table until the conversation switches to his hobby, and I take over her body and talk Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for a while with him. It went well, he really does know the books well and he didn't notice Kirby's sudden lack of grace and nonchalance. And then he looked into…her…my…her eyes, with me behind them and said he'd never met a girl like her/me. Two seconds later I was in the alley banging my facial fingerprint into the wall. That, was not worth getting Kirby out of my life. That was just barely worth risking my neck to help a friend. And I have a feeling things are going downhill in there.

How did she talk me into this? She didn't, she blackmailed me. Yeah, sweet little Kirby was so corrupted by her search for a mate that she blackmailed me in a very clever, but cruel manner. I explained to my dead biker friend how she did so. He pulled himself off the concrete, where he'd been rolling around laughing. He wiped off his tears and stated.

"…you can't be serious…if Kitty did that I'd have the keys in five seconds. Be a man!"

I stood there with my arms crossed and my brow lowered.

"…she's my cousin…"

His chipped grin fell into a serious expression. It all dawned on him.

"Oh…yeah…Geez, _that_ is just evil."

I just shrugged, the communication gap making itself known.

"Yeah, yeah... So, how exactly did things go between you and…?"

Before I could say 'Kitty', the door to the alley was thrown back on its hinges as a chase that had started on the dance floor took itself out into then neon-smelling night air. Five seconds of frantic shouting and grappling later, and the scene had changed quite for the weirder. Johnny was now a good ten feet away, his arms tightly holding his girlfriend who had her face buried in his jacket as she whimpered something that he probably didn't understand but he nodded anyways, looking down at her with comforting eyes.

Meanwhile, I had used some ghost energy to conjure up a contraption resembling those poles with the noose on the end that dog catchers use. I gripped the handle with both hands, my forearms aching as I tried to hold on. The looped cable was currently around Kirby's neck as she lunged forward at the deceased lovers, snarling inhuman curses and swiping out her long arms at thin air as I held her back. While Johnny assured his girlfriend that she was safe now and that he would protect her, I was yelling for Kirby to stop foaming at the mouth.

A few seconds of this later and Johnny called out, still looking down at Kitty as she cried into his jacket.

"Shadow! Wheels!"

In a flash of (…green…always green…why not red or magenta) light, the middle of the alley was now occupied by Thirteen's trademark chopper. And sitting on the seat, hunched over the handlebars with a playful smirk was his shapeless black sidekick with the dreadlocks, pretending to swerve and charge while making the exhaust noises with his fang-filled mouth. Johnny just lowered his eyebrows at this as Kitten wiped her mascara-dripping eyes on his sleeve. He growled under his breath, not wanting to alarm his date.

"…off…the bike..!"

Shadow, despite its size and capabilities, winced at his master's words and quickly hopped off the seat and floated over its tapered middle section, slumped over as if it had legs. I heard it grumble to itself without pronouncing any words, like a cartoon dog from Hades.

Johnny scooped the poorly dressed girl into his arms and sat her down on the back of the bike before mounting himself, starting the engine as Shadow swooped into him and disappeared as Johnny took over his powers. He checked to see if his tearful girlfriend was watching before flashing me a wink. His bike then floated off the ground, spun in the air and gunned it off over the skyline.

I watched it disappear against the dim stars, nodding to myself at how great a couple they had become.

"…it's like the end of 'Grease'. Except creepy."

I glanced over to find Kirby, somehow free from the dog-noose, standing next to me with her arms crossed and her weight shifted to one side as she smiled up at the skyline the same way I had. The only trace of her rapid dog act was a line of froth contrasting against her lipstick. I let my eyebrows set a high-jump record, looking back at the sky then at her again as she coyly glanced over at me.

"…how do you _do_ that?"

She just sighed, shrugging as she pulled out a tissue out of her pocket and wiped off both her lipstick and the saliva accumulated during her performance.

"I'm an actress, comes with the trade. How did you know that me going after Kitten would make her and Johnny straighten out?"

I snapped two fingers together, shifting back to my human self as I explained.

"Kitty's a tough girl, but she needs a strong guy. That's why she chose Johnny and hit on me and Danny. Scare her enough, and she'll go running back to her first choice."

She finished wiping her mouth and tossed the tissue at a dumpster.

"So you had me go _loco_ on her?"

I examined my now paler hands, seeing the day's bruises had healed. This Halfa thing has job perks.

"Yeah. She knows I'm too nice a guy, so I couldn't scare her off. And I happened to have a psychotic Cuban girl in my rolodex."

My eyes snapped up as I remembered.

"…how'd the date go?"

…I'd nearly forgotten about it. That was a nice three minutes. She smiled a bit wider, but her lighthearted statement hit me like a hook.

"…he said his parents wouldn't approve of me, but if I gave him a key to my apartment he'd buy me some jewelry. I could be a trophy girlfriend. How classy."

That…worthless piece of…if he'd have said that while I was in control…!

"I left him the bill and hit the dance floor until I saw some at the bar acting weird. Followed her to the bathroom, Kitten walked out and things went on…"

Her sunny outlook eased my concern a bit, I still wanted to know where he was parked. I then remembered the deal and demanded.

"…Gimme' the collateral."

She laughed and reached her hand up to her neck, adjusting her cross necklace before glancing down at the rather low cut shirt she was wearing. She usually avoided those kind of outfits, even with her tastes, but it was a _date_. I saw her hand move and my eyes snapped up to the dull black sky, looking for constellations that weren't there until I heard a familiar metal tinkling.

I glanced down to see her adjusting the shoulder-loop of her top with one bent arm while holding out the keys to my bike out towards me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a single latex glove. I pulled it on before taking the keys from her and holding them between two fingers and looking around for a fire to sterilize them in. She laughed, pulling her shirt up a few inches and shaking her head at my reaction.

"…you could have just reached through and got them…would've saved you a test drive in my body and saved me a bad date."

I grumbled.

"…just shut up…"

She laughed louder, turning to the distant light at the open end of the alley and walking out to call a cab. I dropped the keys into a sterile bag and pocketed them, tossing the glove at the dumpster before following her. When we hit the sidewalk she jokingly asked.

"Why didn't you have a second key made? For emergencies?"

I glared.

"I did. It's on the same keychain as the original, so I wouldn't lose it."

"…real smart...at least they didn't fall out of my shirt and down a vent or something…"

I scoffed.

"I highly doubt that could happen. I just spent ten minutes occupying your body…I couldn't breathe in that outfit, that guy should have covered his eyes in case the buttons shot off and he was hit in the crossfire."

She waved a cab over.

"…you're only short circuiting because that's the most you've ever done with a girl, and it was with your cousin…what are you going to brag to the guys, you got blackmailed into possessing a girl?"

"…just shut up, or overshadow you again and tell that jerk it's a deal."

A cab pulled up. She cackled at my annoyance.

"You wouldn't."

I broke and admitted, rubbing my neck.

"…okay, maybe I'd just shadow you and flirt with bunch of geeks who never stop following you around when you start doing concerts."

She opened the door to the back seat and finished the argument with a smirk.

"How about you spend a little less time dodging anti aircraft missiles and work on your pick-up lines? If I'm the only girl you can argue like this with, you need help."

Author's Notes

…yeah, all it takes is one prototype ghost-seeking missile to ruin your day. Alan wasn't even the intended target, it was a test flight and it picked up his signal accidentally while he was getting on his train. He might have done the guy a favor, with a decor job like that. You know your life sucks when patriot missiles follow you home from the gym. So, where did Kirby hide the keys where Alan in ghost form couldn't even get them? Low cut shirt, enough said. As cruel as it is, it really is the only way to keep Alan's hands off something even with his size and smarts. He's too much of a gentleman. It's also a nod to the way my girlfriend takes my iPod away to keep me from writing at night. Review if you have the time, thank you for reading.


	21. Chapter 21

DISCLAIMER: See Previous Entries

Pre-Note: Not much Vlad-related plot this chapter. I wanted this to come off as reflective, but it's probably a but funnier than usual. The end has some more Alan-based content, although I'm sure some of you are tired of boxing by now. Please do not drink anything while reading, unless wearing noseplugs or your keyboard is spillproof.

I never really _hated_ rain when I was growing up. Sure, it meant I had to stay inside and practice sounding out words all day, but I didn't stare out the window scowling like most kids. That was the only positive thing I could come up with, I didn't hate rain.

The scenery. Or what's left of it. A recently emptied market place, consisting of several dozen wooden stands. Each displaying their merchandise from hanging hook above the counters. If this wasn't enough of a giveaway, every bit of writing in the square ten-block area was written vertically and comprised of the brush-stroked symbols Chinese alphabet. This was a cozy little part of town reserved for Asians who were new to the 'Golden Mountain' and were saving money to send the rest of their family over.

Every sidewalk and stand was abandoned. Thankfully the locals had enough sense to clear out when the trouble started. Judging by the fact every piece of fabric or weaker piece of wood was slashed or broken, leaving most of the stands in shambles, it was a smart move. The place looked like a hurricane came through and stopped by the local chainsaw outlet right before. From my perch atop the tallest and least battered stand, I surveyed the wreckage and watched for any sign of movement. Nothing but flapping banners and an occasional board falling onto its side. He was still out there.

If you thought the view was bad, you should have seen my clothes. My pants were mostly intact save a few strips of tan where a nail-filled board had torn against my leg, highlighted by a few lines of bright green blood staining the fabric. My jacket was in shambles. Slash marks all over the back and sleeves, my left wrist bare and my right showed green seeping through the insulation and even the cracked leather. Most of the slashes just exposed my shirt underneath, but a few had gone deeper and the broken skin was visible, the blood blurring the outline of the clean slice that had produced it.

Normally the remains of my jacket would have fallen off and left me in the tee I wore underneath it. Except at the time, I was soaked to the bone and not drying out anytime soon. The sky was a dark gray, casting shadows over the damaged area while it bombarded every flat surface with a torrent of rain drops that came down at a steep angle. Filling the silence with a never ending sound of crashing water and echoing metal from the pots and pans strewn in one of the wrecked stands.

I was crouched down to the slanted roof of the remaining stand, one palm pressed down against the boards between my bent knees while the other hovered at my side with a small green flame flickering from between my spread fingers. The rain pounded against my flexed back, cascading down my ruined jacket and pooling at my feet before sliding off the roof like a rooster's egg. I hadn't notice the green tint the shifting water had to it, by now the sight of my own blood was second nature. Green _or_ red.

My white hair was soaked and darkened to dulled silver. My flowing bangs were pressed flat over my forehead and just draped over my brow barely high enough not to block my eyes. Which were burning out of my rain-splattered face at the surrounding destruction, waiting for him to pounce. I saw a pile of boards shift. My legs tensed, and a second later I was hovering a slight ten feet over the roof. I watched a silver and green blue streak by, and watched the roof I'd been standing on collapse into itself before crashing into yet another pile.

I crossed my arms, looking down as my foe finally appeared in the open, landing on his feet as his attack ended with his weapon extended behind his shoulder. I once again bit my tongue as he spun on a sandaled foot to face me, looking up with a face that barely looked human. His jaw was a perfect triangle stemming between two wide cheekbones. His black eyes were perfect rectangles set next to each other on both sides of a nose that was just a small triangle jutting out of his flat face with a single slit for nostrils.

His clothes would have been equally out of place. Impossibly baggy robes that simply hung on his skinny frame by no visible means. And sandaled feet that should have fallen off but stayed on his feet despite his amazing physical feats. To top it off, he was he same shade of bright green from top-knotted head to sandaled feet. He was holding what looked like an extremely oversized sword of possibly Asian influence, complete with feathers hanging from the hilt. Unlike its glowing green owner, the blade was all silver and looked very real compared to its master. It was held before him in both green hands as he yelled up to me in monotone, clear English despite his somehow Asian profile.

"_Coward! _Why do you evade? Do you fear the blade of a true samurai?"

I rolled my eyes up at the water-giving sky before scoffing down at him in a similar yell.

"…You honestly think you're a samurai? You're just jumping around like a cartoon character!"

With that I swung my shoulder, sending my wrist out around my torso and letting the flame it held arc down at where he stood glaring at me. Sadly, the rain pouring down through the air it traveled through seemed to slow it down to a softball's pace and by the time it landed he'd triple back-flipped four feet away. A bit much to work with, but either way I missed. He taunted.

"Why hide behind your powers? Duel me like a real warrior!"

…I'd laugh, but this little piece of animation still was going to drive me over the edge. First he trashes the market for no real reason despite showing off. Then he dodges everything I throw at him. I'd get physical and snap him like a pretzel rod, but he'd holding a giant kitchen utensil. Even if he's just an overpowered idiot, these aren't paper cuts. Why is it always the idiots who get the unnatural powers or endless talent in poorly written epics? Does it provide comic relief, or just leave room for character development? And why the heck are anime characters always missing a parent? Is it an angst-ridden orphan thing or is the divorce rate that high? His suggestion lowered my dripping brow.

"…you sure about that?"

He yelled back, still not a trace of any kind of Asian dialect.

"Come on! I'll show you my _true_ power!"

…that's one cliché too many…he must be stopped before he turns out to be my long lost brother. Who supposedly died in the racing car crash. And became Racer X. Although I don't know it yet. I swooped down to the cracked concrete, uncrossing my arms as my feet touched down on the wet stone. I cracked my neck, asking the arrogant little son of a…stupid vow of verbal celibacy…

"Well, you seem to be poorly educated about swordsmanship…"

His eyes widened as my concentration peaked and my outstretched right hand was now holding what looked like a perfectly generic, green sword that would do any Japanese restaurant wall proud. Nothing flashy or unique. Just a beautifully crafted and well-sharpened Japanese long-sword with a leather-like diamond-wrapped hilt. Compared to his sacred steak-knife over there it looked like a toothpick. I tilted the gently curved blade, examining the sharpening pattern and asking.

"…tell me, ever heard of _kenjutso?"_

I looked up from the simple blade to find my opponent staring at me blankly, his eyes becoming thin slits in a cartoon-ish manner. I smirked, putting my other hand on the hilt and taking a stance with the curve of the blade angled across my chest.

"That's reassuring…"

He violently shook his head, hiding his confusion as he leaped impossibly high into the air, yelling out his rage as he held his shovel-sized blade over his head with his eyes locked on where I stood. In…eh, slow motion. I'm not joking. He was hanging in mid-air, slowly moving toward me while screaming and holding his sword like that. And I'm just standing there in my stance, waiting for him to reach me. I even tapped my foot impatiently against the wet ground, still holding my little sword in a blocking position.

I think he expected me to jump up and cross steel with him in the air. This is the difference between real sword use and the stereotype this guy is living by. One's a fighting art, the other's a way to fill thirty minutes and keep a thin plot going at the same time.

When he finally floated down to within a few feet in front of me, yelling even louder as he swung his shovel-blade down at me in a baseball-bat smash. Only to touch down on center of my blade as I held it in a horizontal block that I'd had three and a half minutes to set up. The metallic collision rang out for a few seconds before the actual impact kicked in.

…was I nuts? No, I just knew my basic physics from high school. Think about it. He was just floating in the air, not generating speed force for the strike. He just swung down when he got close, meaning the only power came from just his arms. And his weapon struck down onto mine as it was held in a very stable block, with both my feet on the ground. So, what happens when a guy hanging in mid-air defying gravity whacks a fixed object with comparable force?

…he bounces off like a Polish person's head walking into a doorway that's too short for him. Did I mention this is the kind of physics you learn from throwing rocks at a bigger rock out of boredom? I call it the Fenton Theorem of killing time when my parents have guests over. With rocks.

Like I explained, he shot back like he'd ran into a wall, dropping down to the puddle-covered ground like a rag doll. His ridiculous sword clattered down next to him, he'd lost his grip when the shockwave went through his wrists. I lowered my own weapon and tossed it over my shoulder like a small wig, letting it vanish before it hit the ground.

I slowly stepped over to where my foe lay face-down, rain bouncing off his strangely drawn form. I carelessly kicked him in the side, rolling him over with my foot and securing the toe of my shoe gently against the center of his perfectly smooth throat. He gasped painfully as his colorless eyes shot up at me, losing their cool edge in favor of a more begging expression. I just lowered a dripping eyebrow as he blinked rainwater out of his eyes before continuing the silent plea.

I just sighed, betraying the badass appearance my torn clothes and soaked hair gave me.

"…you're _not_ a samurai…you realize that…"

His head jerked up and down as my shoe threatened to crush his windpipe. I nodded back.

"…you're just some little white guy who watched too much anime."

He closed his eyes and whimpered. Because that was the truth, not because I could have snapped his neck and made his afterlife rather uncomfortable. I went on in a harsh, sharp tone.

"…and you decided to show off by terrorizing innocent people, hoping you could take some on just like…geez, probably some character you drew pornographic pictures of for kicks."

He went to correct me, either that or claim his innocence like he had o his mother when she found said pictures. I pressed my foot an inch farther into his throat and shut him up.

"Hey, I'm talkin' here!"

I knelt down, my eyes flaring green as I couldn't help but growl.

"…you make me _sick…_if a single person here loses their family business because of your shit, I'm going to hunt you down and spit-roast you on that _stupid_ sword…speaking of which…"

I glanced over at his oversized blade, narrowing my eyes as I cocked a finger-gun at it and fired my thirty second energy blast of the day at it from point-blank range. And since the ever-falling rain slowed the blast down considerably, the stupid kid had a good five seconds to whimper as his prized possession was struck head-on and instantly melted with a low hiss. The rain drops bounced off the quickly cooling molten metal as I took my foot off his throat and stepped away from him, but not before muttering to myself.

"…you make things a lot harder for all the other nerds, you know that?"

A few minutes later I walked away from the site of the 'duel' with my hands in my pockets and my collar flipped up to keep the rain from getting down my back any more. I ignored the squealing protests of the kimono-clad ghost, who I'd left hanging from a hook by his underwear. Judging by the tag on the back, his name had been Herbert. It was when I was approaching the border of the Asian section of town when I saw another sign of life.

Well, saw is jus a formal term. More like jumped out in front of me like a bat out of hell. I was passing a covered alley when all of a sudden a sopping wet figure literally hopped into my path, making me snap my eyes up from the brown sidewalk cracks just to check if it was Skulker, a teenage ghost hunter in a robotic exoskeleton, the one guy made out of licorice, or just some guy wearing a trench coat and not much else.

I nearly did a double take as I had to ilt my neck down to see a little Asian girl in cutoffs and a purple vintage tee with lettering I couldn't understand. I'd usually dislike rattling off racial details and height, but the truth is it was an Oriental girl who barely came up to my chest in high heels. I'm not sure how old she was, it's hard to tell with her hair clinging to the shape of her head and some make-up running down rounded face. As she stared up at me without a word of explanation, my shyness kicked in despite my being in full ghost form.

"…hi there…?"

She mumbled something that was both too quiet for me to hear, and not in English. I signaled with my hands that I didn't understand, and she quickly sopped speaking and looked down as if embarrassed. I just stood there with my wrists jammed into my pockets to keep dry, waiting for her to look back up. When she finally did, she leaned over to look behind me, at the remains of the market.

She finally looked back up at my face again with a cat-like tilt to her head. Her dark eyes flitted between the side she'd been looking and at my face, probably implying she'd seen what happened. I'd guess by the way she carried herself she was probably older than she was tall, either a preteen or older judging by her modern fashion tastes. I would have rubbed my neck if it wouldn't have gotten my hand soaked again. I just looked away and shrugged slightly, not sure how to act. She did the same, not sure whether to splash me with holy water or give me a hug for obviously having superpowers of some sort. How would you honestly react?

As my eyes settled on a window display across the empty street I felt something grab my hand. By the time I snapped my head back to see what she was doing, she was gone. And there was a sound of frantic footsteps echoing from the alley she'd came out of. I spun to look after her, seeing only a brick wall at one end. No sign of the girl. How's _that_ for an awkward conversation?

I stared for a few seconds, wondering what just happened before realizing I was holding something in the hand she'd grabbed. I glanced down to find what looked like a coin on a chain pressed against my palm. I raised it in front of my face, squinting to make out the symbols on it through the rain polling on it before just shaking my head to myself, pocketing the odd souvenir and turning to continue my walk. I would have flown, but I don't like rain at high heights.

…of course, right when I looked back down at the sidewalk, I saw a rose sticking straight out of the concrete as if some one had landed it like a dart. I stared blankly at it as I suddenly heard some one standing on a building nearby start a dramatic monologue directed at where I stood. Obviously the same guy who threw this thing. I just slowly closed my eyes, stretching out my left arm and firing a single energy shot angled up at the rooftops without even looking to see what I was aiming at.

I kept my eyes closed, hearing the cookie-cutter monologue go on for a few more seconds before it was cut off with a cry of pain. My aim had improved, at least. Followed by the sound of a guy falling off the roof, bouncing off a cloth canopy, landing in a stocked fruit cart before finally rolling down a short flight of steps. Then silence.

I kept my eyes still closed, waiting for any more sound effects before opening them and continuing my walk without a glance at the victim. I purposely crushed the trademark rose under my foot as I walked off into the mainstream part of town, mumbling.

"Undead nerds…pfft, all that wasted time…"

…I mean, if I wanted to take out all that frustration I could have walked up to some creepy chubby kid in the adult section of a comic shop and gave him a wedgie. But, oh yeah, I'm half ghost. Such fun. Do you think that girl ran off because the blood dropping down my jacket was neon green? Or did my shyness play into effect?

Two Hours Later, Around Noon

The moment I swooped in through the barn's roof, I sighed at the fact I wasn't being rained on for the first time since I'd been pulled away from dry room to go investigate the Chinatown thing. As I appeared, fully human and completely dry, sitting in a bean bag chair in the slightly furnished loft Kirby didn't even look up from the guitar she was strumming from her seat on another bean chair.

She was clad in the same outfit she'd had on that morning, one of my blue hooded sweatshirts and a pair of her old patched jeans. She hadn't bothered with even brushing her hair, it hung in tangles in the pouch of the hood behind her neck as she flicked her fingers across a continuous country note.

After she started strumming an actual chord, her emerald eyes slid up to where I was sitting with a smile before she noticed a few stains where the remaining cuts were bleeding through the green tee shirt I'd put on that morning. Without even bothering to welcome be back home, or even ask what had happened she dropped the folk guitar onto the rug and reached behind where she was sitting, pulling out a black metal case she kept first aid supplies in. I winced at the mere sight of the box, standing up from the chair/sack and holding my palms between us as she stood up also, opening the box.

"Whoa…these are just _glances!_ They'll be gone in an hour, you how fast I heal…?"

She just lowered her unpainted eyelids down before raising back up again like a windshield wiper. She wasn't budging. She had the open case in one hand and a white tube in the other.

"…that's enough time to get an infection. Just take your shirt off and pretend I'm _any_ other girl…"

I eventually broke, taking off my shirt and turning to the wall, crossing my arms and closing my eyes. It's not the way the cream stings that makes me hate this ritual. It's the fact Kirby insists on it. I'd do it myself, but I can't reach my back like she can to get every cut. As she started applying the balm to the worst of the gashes, she began the usual string of questions.

"…this from the East Side?"

I just grunted, pretending she was a blonde or a redhead. And not my cousin. She made a curious chirping noise. I felt her breath on my back as she leaned closer to one of the cuts, causing me to wince in pure mental pain.

"…are these…?"

I sighed.

"Yeah, a sword…the guy was straight out of a comic book. One nostril, big sword, bad catchphrases."

She nodded, accompanied with a light groan of understanding.

"These are just nicks. What'd you do, take him barehanded?"

I kept my eyes closed, staring at the back of my eyelids as I admitted.

"At first…well, mostly. Then he challenged me to a 'duel' or something."

She actually let out a guffaw, sill dabbing my back with the sterilizer.

"HAAA! Oh, God…No offense, but you with a sword…"

She broke down laughing again, doubling over and forgetting the crossword of wounds she'd been treating. I let my eyes crack open, keeping them narrowed.

"…don't start that again…"

…Kirby has a bit of a joke left over from our days as my aunt's dojo students. Mainly the fact when she had us practice modified kendo with wooden swords, it turned out to be my weakest form of combat. Sure, after a few years my form straightened out but I'm just not a swordsman. Never found a reason to be. It's an incredible waste of free time.

It's a useless skill to have, a dead art with no clear goal. And combining gymnastics with it only makes it even less practical. My hands just couldn't handle a blade like I could two fists. Did also I mention Kirinia took to it like riding a bike? And dominated it like Lord Armstrong himself? Whenever my aunt has a dinner party with the family, these two step into a back room to have a quick match with two _bokkens _currently had hanging on her wall.

She recovered after a few minutes, continuing her task and leaving me wanting to elbow her off the edge of the loft. As she finally finished, capping the tube and dropping it into the metal box she joked.

"I'm out of lollipops, but that book you ordered is…"

Before she could finish, I had dove into the second bean chair and was tearing the brown paper off a hardcover book I'd ordered off a vintage biography website.

"…is…was, on the table…"

She giggled to herself as she sat back down, taking her guitar back against her chest as she positioned her fingers along the depressed ridges along the wooden bridge.

"What is it, anyway?"

I admired the bare cover.

"It's an inside account on V-Man Senior…"

I looked up to find her still holding her guitar but staring at me with her pencil eyebrows creeping up here forehead. I nervously chuckled.

"Eheh…um…Jack Fenton always called Vlad that."

She nodded slightly, not lowering her eyebrows as she just shook her head down at her guitar, plucking a single string and beginning to tune it. I went on, cracking open the stiff binding.

"This guy probably disappeared after writing this. Heck, he actually told some magazines Masters had developed an extremely abnormal obsession with ghosts."

She stopped tuning the old harp before she even started, gaping at me with a slack jaw and wide eyes as I sat there flipping pages.

"…Crocker Syndrome?"

I cleared my throat, examining the picture on the back cover of the head scientist at Vlad's old company.

"…that's where a guy's obsessed with something that's not real…"

She leaned forward, suddenly deep in the conversation as I was stepping out of it.

"Yeah, yeah! Ghosts, aliens, fair…"

I cut her off quickly, raising a hand as I kept flipping pages looking for pages.

"…Kirb'…Cousin Kirby…fairies aren't real. Neither are gnomes, pixies, ant-fairies or other mythical creatures."

She scoffed.

"Yeah, right! Come on, ghosts…why not the rest?"

I sighed, snapping the book shut and staring at her blankly.

"If it's real, I've seen it. All I've seen are ghosts, and that unicorn that jumped out in front of my bike that one time."

"…that was just a deer…it lost an antler when you hit it, thank God it was okay."

My eye twitched. I forced myself away from that. I rambled off, not thinking before I said.

"Like I was saying…weirdest thing I've seen besides ghosts were those two ferrets…"

Of course, Kirby begged for details on what was so scary about a pair of ferrets Kerri had when she was a kid. I pulled my shirt on as I explained.

"…those things scared the heck outta' me. I mean, she carried them round everywhere and talked to them like they were people…"

By now she was tuning her guitar again, but nodding every few words to keep me going. I started digging through my pockets.

"Sometimes I was alone in the room with those things. I swear to God I heard people whispering to each other…and they were making fun of me…"

Kirby bit her lip to keep from laughing. I glared.

"I'm not kidding! And all of a sudden Kerri had all this great stuff…she said she got it off the web, but she doesn't know how to turn on a computer!"

I began pacing the loft, all the old memories flooding back.

"…and my allergies…I don't have any. My folks say I was allergic to ferrets, but would it allergy really cause abstract hallucinations involving giant rule books and a green-haired guy whose intellect made me look like Steve Hawking?"

As my cousin stared blankly at my rambling, we heard two sets of footsteps outside on the road. The rain had stopped pounding the roof, probably my sisters out for a walk. My speech peaked out at.

"…could these strange occurrences in Kerri's life and my hallucinations really be connected to those ferrets?"

My point was further taken as we turned our heads to the window at the sound of some one stepping on a rake and taking it to the forehead. As I walked over to look out and see if she was okay, I finished.

"…and Kerri's short attention span?"

I heard Kirby slowly take a deep breath and whistle.

"…Alan…two words…decaf."

The Next Morning

"Watch her left!"

As if I'd jerked the control stick of a game control, Kirby instantly crouched sharply away from the well-hidden but hardly invisible blue glove arcing around her opponent's shoulder in a makeshift left hook aimed in the general area of my cousin's clenched jaw. From my perch on the ropes on the corner farthest from the sparring partners, I could hear the whooshing scrape of leather on leather before they began trading blows between one-sided stare-downs. That hook had missed Kirby's head by an inch. The glove had just barely brushed her headgear, giving us that lovely sound-bite.

I uttered a mild curse under my breath a mere two seconds later, but by then it was ancient history to the fighters as they continued their combination attempts and footwork tricks. That was the third time my 'student' had make me break my vow of verbal celibacy since the session started. Where the heck did she learn to slip punches? I've just been teaching her to block, it's easier on the beginner but she keeps jumping ahead like this. Wasp has been too busy dogging me to get busy to teach her anything, and the real trainers keep their distance.

The time bell rang out from the corner, and both girls stopped in mid-punch and mid-dodge to tap gloves in farewell. Well, the pale girl in the blue gloves and yellow sweats just tapped gloves while Kirby lunged forward and wrapped her green-gloved mitts around her newfound friend's shoulders before bouncing off to my corner as her stunned rival just crept out of the ring looking around for reality show cameras.

"Thanks for the tip, Cuz'. But I saw her leg twitch."

I stopped stroking my chin, letting my hand fall against my knee as I glanced over her barely-slouched form. She was clad in a pair of somehow high-tech black gym pants that shrunk to the figure in an unflattering manner. Well, actually it'd be more flattering in Kirby's state of fitness so she wore her ultra-baggy and obviously oversized sleeveless tee down to hip-level. Resting against her well-hidden hips was a pair forest-green sparring gloves the owner had ordered by mistake. Instead of throwing them into the rental barrel, he'd given them to Kirby. I think he was just after the hug.

"…since when can you hear chin music?"

She just winked, never answering the question. She then grabbed the rope I was leaning against and flipped herself onto the floor without budging me an inch. I watched over my shoulder as she literally _conga'd_ her way over to the locker rooms, her cape-like gray shirt wafting behind her like a flapper dress as she tapped her gloves to the beat in her head. No one looked away from their punching bags or training partners, nobody seems to mind the girl in the green gloves dancing around the gym. Who would complain?

For once, I was glad she was wearing one of my shirts. It's not the overprotective male relative complex some try to pin on me, I could care less about what she wears and what she doesn't. Yet while Kirb' has blended in as just another fighter in here very well, a lot more semi-regulars tend to stick around after their workouts to watch me train her.

Not the real fighters, of course. I mean the local teenagers in uniform white wife-beater shirts and brand-new gloves and gear. The older fighters, clad in aging but frequently washed clothes they'd worn for years and would wear for a few more, just laughed to themselves at her antics while they worked focus pads or the other veteran's kidneys. The wannabes saw her as a sex object, the vets saw her as a sharp little featherweight with a personality to mismatch.

Then again, nearly all of the real fighters in here have wonderful wives, girlfriends or even mothers back home waiting for them every night with a kiss and a warm meal that would make a super-heavyweight smile. I've been told Kirby's a dish, but I've also but any woman you love enough to marry is a full course dinner. But tell that to the teenagers sitting around on the benches pressed against the wall, nudging each other like idiots as she disappeared into the locker room. I slipped out through the ropes and landed on the wooden boards soundlessly, hoping my outfit wouldn't catch anyone's attention.

I can't say I was dressed as Kirby or the veterans. While my tan sleeveless and black sweats looked better than what the rookies wore, you're talking to a guy who trains in trunks. And shoes, they set up a petition last year that I have to either keep my shoes on or see a specialist about the sweat glands in my feet.

So I go shirtless, more or less. If people don't walk up to compliment on that tattoo between my shoulder blades, I'm probably not working out like a boxer. With my not exactly boxing-like sessions at my aunt's dojo becoming more frequent, I'd been working my old routine at home in the barn.

Unfortunately, a while back I made the mistake of getting my cousin hooked on the sport and in a way dragged _myself_ out here every couple days dogged _myself_ into asking around for female sparring partners. In a way.

As I moved my foot forward to walk away from the ring and let some one else use it, another sound joined the orchestra of leather and shouting and went straight for my eardrum. A low, pure whistle that swooped up at the end into a classic 'Over here!' signal. My eyes snapped open from their thoughtful half-squint as I spun my shoulders towards the whistler, who had been observing the day from a secluded bench between the sparring rings and the end wall.

Stretched out on her back with her knees crossed and a sandal swinging from between two toes, was a young woman that both stuck out like a thumb in traction and blended in as if she had a lampshade over her head. She wasn't dressed like a trainer or a fighter, the bleached denim shorts and white blouse made her look more like a model posing for a magazine ad in a grungy gym. And if her clothes weren't enough, the milk-pale skin and white blonde hair weren't exactly signs of a manual labor job.

She had her delicate-looking hands under her head, staring up at the ceiling from under a pair of designer sunglasses she was wearing. Indoors, on a cloudy day. She showed more signs of being asleep than having just called me over, but nonetheless I jogged right over as she continued swinging her sandal from her foot. When she heard my trainers touch down next to her bench her pink-painted lips curled into a small smile aimed straight up at the ceiling. Her voice was like some one plucking a harp in the attic over your head.

"…who you cornering over there?"

I ignored the question, crossing my arms at her relaxed form and looking down at her with a tilted head.

"What are you doing back here? It's been months…"

Her smile widened. The ceiling tiles probably blushed.

"Easy, Phantom…"

I felt my spine twitch at the old nickname I'd taken far out of context. thankfully she didn't see this as she went on.

"…I just stopped in to enjoy the AC and catch up with some old friends."

She slid the sandal back over her toes with her other foot, uncrossing her pale legs.

"And I happened to hear my adopted little brother coaching a girl with new gloves…about time you got leashed."

I rolled my eyes as she gave the ancient ceiling a pearl-lined grin. I sighed.

"…you wish…she's just a friend who needed a second."

She didn't miss a beat, harping up to where I stood.

"You're training some one. Don't dance around it."

I opened my mouth to respond but she must have heard my tongue move and continued.

"…she sounded good. What style?"

As she switched the subject from an awkward catch-up to something I could roll with, I broke.

"I started her out pure ringer. But she keeps doing her own thing, bugs the heck outta' me."

She giggled, causing me to glance over my shoulder at the oblivious gym behind us. Her next remark snapped my head right back around.

"You sound just like _him_…"

My eyes shot even wider the first time, the awkwardness swung right back into my stomach rendering me silent as she stretched her arms over her head and pushed up into a sitting position. Her glass-shielded eyes cut into the far wall as she pulled her sandals past her heels, getting ready to leave. Her sandals touched down on the floor with two distinctive clacking sounds as she stood up to her full height, about up to my shoulder. She was built like a doll, very small and probably weighs less than a girl half her age. Which was going to be, hard to believe, twenty five next December.

As she started walking towards the side door near where we'd been talking, a new sound drowned out her clacking shoes and caused me to snap back to where I'd been before the snow-colored girl had called me over. The tiny woman stopped as her ear caught onto this, turning herself towards the footsteps but not bothering to turn her eyes. I heard a light panting beside me, followed by.

"_Apesadumbrado sobre eso, había_…oh, hey!"

The girlish woman raised her near-white eyebrows at Kirby's Spanish dialect before extending a hand in the direction where Kirby had danced up from. Kirby leaned forward and took the hand, stepping in front of me so I couldn't see her face but I could feel her beaming at her new potential friend.

"I'm…"

Her soprano meow was cut off by a harping smirk.

"…Kirinia, Cisne De Oro…Kirby for short?"

Kirby clapped both her tanned hands around the single white one, yelping at the trivia bit.

"Ha! Were you at the concert? A lot of people see my hair and…"

Once again, a harp dropped onto a cat like a piano on a duck.

"No, actually my room mate has your album. Your name doesn't really roll of the tongue, but your voice…"

She smiled again, but her sunglasses were angled towards Kirby's shoulder instead of her face. Kirby leaned back away from the much shorter girl, dropping her hands in confusion at the sudden compliment.

"…is just inspiring. It's worth the name. So, is Phant' here your personal trainer or do you just fall for the bad boys?"

Kirby nearly doubled over laughing, not noticing the unmoving pair of sunglasses. She probably thought she had said 'Fent' instead of the shortened 'Phantom'.

"Something like that…"

The ghost of a girl laughed back.

"Right…well, see you two around, and keep your right under your shoulder."

With that she turned and clacked out the door to the alley, leaving both of us staring after her. Kirby in confusion, me in a state of nostalgia. My eyes lost their glaze as she turned and asked with high eyebrows.

"Who…was _that?"_

I realized she hadn't given her name, much less an explanation for my out-looped sidekick. I shrugged, turning and walking towards the lockers and explaining.

"_That, _was Grace. Don't ask, it's a long story."

She stepped up beside me, keeping pace while trying to figure out what had just happened.

"…she knew my voice, but she never even looked at my face. What was that about?"

I ducked into the locker hall, stepping out a second later with my bag to find my cousin crossing her arms next to the door waiting for her answer. As we pushed out into the street crossing I remembered something and casually rattled off.

"Um…don't take that personally. She's blind."

I continued walking along the sidewalk for a few more yards before I noticed I was alone. I looked back to see Kirby standing with her bag over her shoulder, staring at the gym's entrance as if trying to hit the rewind button on what she saw. She caught my glance and jogged up to my side, lightly demanding.

"…well? Where's that little story you always have to keep my head on straight?"

I smirked on the side of my face she couldn't see.

"…it's a work in progress, ask me again later."

…this is what happens when my life starts to get normal. It makes itself abnormal all over again.

Author's Notes

...okay, now that I'm done trashing anime cliches...I'm sorry, but this is a trend in my stories. Idiots with big swords being idiots. And ever since I first flipped through channels and saw some guy in a tuxedo with a rose standing on a roof-top, I wanted a character to peg him with a thrown shoe or something. I'm sure the shows I've torn up have their moments, but I just had to. That coin the girl gave him will pop up in the next chapter, along with Grace's identity and how she knows Alan. No, she's not a love interest, I apologize. Oh, and Alan's out-of-place outburst about fairies? This is Butch Hartman, people! Figure it out! Next chapter, not just another rainy day and odd happening at the gym, I promise.


	22. Chapter 22

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

Pre-Note: Can't apologize enough for the delay in updating. My schedule should clear up enough for twice a week soon enough. This chapter may be a bit different from the others, don't be too shocked. Nothing too severe language wise. Also, earlier scenes depicting an idiot college drinking game. After the stupidity and drinking has been removed, leaving behind a serious sport that parodies its own origin. Nothing perverted, just plain ironic.

"Okay, just the next hand…"

Her fiancée rolled his eyes.

"Wasp, just shut up and adjust your towel before Fent' passes out."

She snorted in disgust, sitting back in her chair as I just shook my head down at my hand of cards.

…with an opener like that, you just have to know where the conversation is taking place.

You're aware there is a library on the top floor of the Fenton farmhouse. Filled with overstuffed couches, tables, lamps, even a few statues for effect. But the wall-to-wall shelves are filled with nothing but the occasional magazine and maybe a box of tissues. Dark oak paneling and lush carpets, only to furnish a library that was never filled. It was designed to hold the vast collection of every Fenton press material ever made. Too bad the smaller, but nearly identical library on the second floor holds all three cubby shelves of the collection.

Somewhere along the line, a very classy, dark-wood poker table ended up in the bookless library. Don't ask how or when, I just came up here for a tissue one day and found a green felt table with slots for cards and chips. My parents and sisters never really acknowledged its existence or its origin, but nonetheless I found ways to put it to good use.

For instance, take right then. While Wasp was adjusting her towel. A certain pair of fiancées has been riding around on my shoulders all day about wedding themes. Until I suggested a quick game of Hold 'Em. This was game five.

Oh yeah. On a completely unrelated, nearly trivial note…I was stripped down to my waist, Aron was down to his shirt and brief-shorts, Kirby was relying on a gigantic tee shirt to maintain her dignity and Wasp, having folded early, had the honorary loser's towel wrapped around herself as she fumed at Kirby's shuffling technique instead of her own playing skill.

We're not perverts. This is just the only way we know how to keep score. I'm a decent player, hence my coverage, while Kirby just inherited her father's gift of bluffing. And as Wasp accepted her loss and the cards resumed their ballet around the table the conversation continued. I sighed, trying to remember how the punching bags smelled in the South Boston area.

"Well, Gleasons was awesome. But it was filled with wannabes. The tourists didn't even take off their cameras."

Aron chuckled in a high-pitch, trying to impersonate Ray Charles. We're not sure why he does this, he just does. Hey, Wasp's problem, not mine.

"Oh yeah. But the gift bags from the sponsor. _Those_, were awesome."

His fuming girlfriend grumbled.

"…cheap-ass…"

While us fighters nodded at the memory with crooked smiles, Kirb' was looking down at her cards with low eyebrows. She always hates being out of the conversation. We continued chatting about the different gyms we'd all traveled to while the hand came and went. Aron and I had a close tie, but Kirby's luck just didn't extend to cards. She dropped her powerless cards onto the green felt, reaching behind her head and pulling out the blue autograph marker she'd been using to keep her hair in a braided coil behind her head. By the time her ebony locks finished cascading down the back of her chair, the couple-to-be was already protesting.

"_Come on_! That's not even a hair clip!"

"You guys made me count my shoes as a pair, and she gets to count _that? _If you count that I'm getting my bra back!_"_

I didn't even look up to acknowledge the protest rally. I dropped my cards onto the deck and started shuffling, calling out and stopping the protest as Kirby glanced timidly between the two of her supporters. She was already getting used to the idea of strip poker being a legitimate _sport. _Eventually I cut in.

"Guys! She's new, just give her the shirt. Wasp counted _three_ piercings. Give the rookie the _one_ Sharpie."

The two dark-skinned prize fighters stared for a second as I shuffled the deck with a tune in my throat before breaking down and shrugging. They couldn't argue about Wasp's fashion statements. Aron tries all the time, look where that got him. I nodded to myself, looking down at the cards as I broke the stack into halves.

"Besides…what if she did. According to sixteen different churches and temples, I'd either have to gouge my eyes out or have little red guys with pitchforks do it for me."

My cousin broke out into a muffled giggling fit behind her raised hand as Wasp raised a threaded eyebrow at my comment. I continued.

"That and 'Iron' here is engaged. And his old lady would reach across this table and snap his neck if he seemed too eager."

Both 'Iron', as his natural nickname was, and his future owner tilted their heads to the side and nodded thoughtfully in agreement. She really would. I finished.

"…and Waspy would probably take a picture and ruin Mitten's career with it."

Kirby was now sprawled out on her quarter of the table, clutching her mouth with both hands to control her laughter as Wasp thoughtfully nodded a few mores times before catching herself, snapping her eyes over and glaring at me.

"_What?"_

I maintained my calm exterior, starting to deal to the three remaining players.

"…well, she has a second album planned. And…um…"

Aron finished.

"Babe, you hate celebrities."

She stood up from her chair, holding the towel closed as she raised the other hand to point at each of us in turn as she realized what we were talking about.

"Hey! That girl's movie made fem-boxing look like a _freakshow_!"

Aron and I slid our cards behind our hands as Kirby wiped off her eyes to do the same. Aron nodded to himself, more likely at his cards, before glancing up at her as she ranted.

"So, you started cursing at her at an autograph signing…"

She slumped back down with a low growl, crossing her arms as she shifted her soft green eyes around at the empty book shelves. Wasp has her mother's temper. Or the other way around, when I first took on Val in the red suit I thought how she acted like Wasp. How didn't I put the two together? Wasp had the secondary nickname 'Michelle Tyson', because of that autograph incident. Just goes to show Tucker was away during most of her childhood. I asked her what a gigabyte was. She said it was ninety nine cents at the convenience store.

…you have no clue what we're talking about, right? Don't feel bad, neither do Kirby or all six of our parents. Eventually Wasp managed to calm herself down enough to bring up another subject. She glanced over at our fourth wheel and asked in an unusually polite tone.

"So…your mom is…?"

Right as I got my own hand together, an old fashioned bell rang twice from the pile of clothing pile under the table. I flipped my cards down as I reached into one of my shoes and pulled out my cell phone, flipping it open as the other players quieted down.

"Yo?"

I pulled the tiny speaker away from my head, holding it out at arm's length as a piercing voice yelled from the garbled signal.

"_ALAN!"_

I sighed, recognizing my father's greeting as everyone dropped their cards onto the felt and leaned closer to hear the conversation. Even through the phone, he was loud enough to empty out a polite room.

"_WE HAVE A GHOST ALERT! SECURE THE BASE UNTIL THE THREAT IS FENTON-IZED!"_

Aron and Wilma flashed each other raised eyebrows as I buried my face in the shoulder opposite the outstretched phone. My cousin just rolled her eyes and slumped back in her chair as she blew a strand of hair away from her face. Then it fell back down defiantly and she kept trying to blow it back up with a determined grimace. I blushed slightly, not moving the phone any closer. He knew I was listening, that's all I had to say. He finished.

"…_and please tell me you're not playing poker again. Your mother hates it, and I'm sick of you forgetting me as a fourth."_

A sharp click sounded, sending my fellow fighters into hysterics. Followed by all three freezing in mid-laugh and cringing to themselves. He didn't know what rules we played by. And if he did, then he needed to look in a mirror that didn't take off thirty pounds. I just snapped the phone closed and dropped it into my jeans side-pocket. As they started scraping their cards back I felt around the discarded clothes pile for my shirt.

"Guys? I think I should meet 'em out there. The new RV has a tricky transmission."

Kirby nodded and stared dividing my cards between herself and Aron while Wasp demanded her shoes and top back so she could get back in the game.

…man, whatever happened to people complaining how you're never around when Superman shows up? Well, you have to consider my friends get hit on the head on a regular basis.

One Hour Later

…I wasn't joking about that new RV's transmission. My father had called from where they had it parked out back while they added the Fenton touch to it. I'd been worried about not getting here in time. Turns out I had a half hour to catch hear via word of screaming mouth where the commotion was and another fifteen minutes to take care of the situation.

Where'd the other fifteen minutes go? There was this billboard ad along the highway with a very subtle joke. I had to stop in mid-flight and try to figure it out. I think it's a commentary on the recent political shift. Or an ad for car insurance, I couldn't decide. But enough about that billboard, onto the deserted town square of a developing farm community a few minutes off the highway.

It was not exactly your average strip mall. Imagine a little circle of stores with a clock tower on the tallest one. In the middle of which, was a nice little circular park with an also circular road looping in the only gap in the buildings and out after a drive-by of this little town. Outside this little ring of shops, nothing but dirt and patches of grass for a few miles. This is stage one of a real estate thing, not an artistic look at society and nature.

There's one thing I give this town credit for. They know when to get out the way. One time I had to lure a ghost two miles out of the city limits, while invisible, before I could take him on. Everyone was just standing in their yards taking pictures while the rubble flew at their heads and I had to blast it. Why do all suburban deadheads think they're immune to physical harm? Because they don't live in the city? Or because there's Prozac and Ritalin in the water to balance out the fact that they're absolutely nuts?

More good news. I'd managed to keep the collateral damage down to a few broken street lamps. Guess who was raising hell all over town? Mr. Glass, the first ghost I ever laid eyes on. After that look in the mirror, I mean. Needless to say, the fight was over before it started. He just looked up at a tree and saw me smirking down at him from between the branches. Girliest scream I've ever heard.

But the real event begins as I'm perched on the church-like roof of the highest building in the tiny circle of brick buildings, completely invisible but out of comfort crouched behind a chimney as I watched a silver and green RV tear into the circle of stores and small businesses, its back tires leaving black trails along the old asphalt as three candy-colored jumpsuits hopped out of the side door before the brakes caught. Two of them landed in a ready crouch, the other landed on her side but rolled into a rather scuffed crouch as well, pretending she didn't just soil the choreography.

My mother and the twins. Those jump suit colors weren't exactly stealthy. They held that pose for about two minutes, according to my cell phone which I checked three times. Then they braced themselves as a wailing scream that echoed off the landscape rang out. Soon enough, the little glass ghost ran out from an alley straight at them screaming bloody murder with his arms pumping as he sprinted full-wind. From their angle, it looked like a homicidal ghost on the move. From my angle? Well, he just thought I was still chasing him. Poor guy.

The trio of Fem-Fentons held their pose as he approached, still screaming. I saw my mother's head move under her half-face helmet, instructing her daughters to stay in formation. But when the little guy got within ten years, yelling for them to protect him, they were suddenly long gone. Kerri had left her 'Fentility Belt' clattering on the ground behind her. Um, she's not on speaking terms with belt buckles.

I expected the ghost to follow them, he was screeching for them to fire. At the guy he thought was sill after him, but was actually watching this affair from where I was standing. But when he saw the belt curled up on the ground as the jump-suited women ran off into the RV screaming for back-up, he screeched to a stop. Leaving shards of green glass on the ground behind him, he was practically and literally falling apart. I stood up a bit to get a better look from behind the square chimney as he reached down and pulled something off the belt before gripping it with both clawed hands.

I cursed under my breath, shooting out of my crouch through the chimney and straight down at where he stood in the rotunda. Half-way through my two-second flight I pulled back a flame to take him out before he activated the likely explosive, only to watch him twist his wrists and disappear into thin air. I didn't notice this because I was braced for a swooping collision, so it wasn't until I made a full arc through empty air did I realize he was gone.

I spun around to kill my momentum, going visible as I did so. I stared at where he'd been standing, watching a meal canister roll to the side gently as if it had been dropped. I hung the air for a few moments, not caring to watch the motionless RV as I dropped down onto my feet and walked over to where the thing had stopped in a crack in the asphalt. I looked down at it, tapping it with one shoe as I notice the odd design of the 'explosive'.

…it was a silver and green…thermos? Rather similar to the model hanging on the wall of the 'Fenton Museum', if I recall correctly. Then again, having my DNA ripped apart and stapled back together soon afterwards may have fogged my memory.

I reached down and picked it up, rolling it between my hands with my back to the Fenton-filled RV. Yeah, even has the little handle on the lid. Talk about going back to basics. Not going to ask where they dug this thing up, most of Jack Fenton's original works were…I think there was just a big garage sale, actually…I made a note to ask some of the tamer ghosts about this stuff, right before a digital charging tone sounded from behind my back. My eyes snapped up from the ecto-tupperware as terribly heavy-handed voice bellowed from the same direction as the charging noise.

"You mess with the Fentons, you get the horns…"

…my first reflex? Duck? Dodge? Blast something? No, I dropped the thermos and looked over my shoulder with my silver brows tilted.

"…do you get your catchphrases from a fill-in-the-blank system?"

His reply, a basketball-sized ball of bright green energy hitting me square in the lower back. A blurry second later and I was skidding along a patch of dirt a good hundred yards outside the circle of buildings, tearing apart the remains of my jacket after the actual blast burnt right through it. Around the time I stopped skidding, the pain finally got up my spine to my brain. I yelled out a Spanish curse as I quickly got to my feet, clutching the scorched side of meat that used to be my lower back. My curse subsided to another exclamation.

"…never…turn your back…"

I winced as I pried my hands off my rapidly healing back, looking down at the green tinge the burn had left on my palms.

"…on a Fenton."

…that's the motto engraved on that Medieval Coat of Arms…also, featured in the Fen-seum. Technically, my parents should be paying me for this advertising. People are more likely to read my inner thoughts than watch that documentary they used to plug it.

I glanced up at the thinly clouded sky, trying to figure out what my own father just blasted me with. I'd ask _why_, but the fact I'm not exactly a subtle-looking ghost would solve that riddle. I dusted off my now desert-camo splattered outfit with blood-slick hands as I pondered what to do now. Fly off? Go mirage and lay low around until they leave? Slash the tires of the RV, then fly off and have a kegger back at the house?

…where did _that_ come from…

I began scratching my head at my sudden interest in college parties, considering I'm neither in college of capable of drinking alcohol, right as a tiny flare of dust shot up next to my left foot. My eyes shot down to the tiny eruption as the wind ore it apart into a brown wisp right as another little dust crater loudly popped into existence with a resonating crack next to my left foot. I glanced between the two shoebox-sized divots before looking up at the slightly distant ring of buildings.

I spotted a tiny figure perched on the chimney I'd been hiding behind, its arms moving along its width as if adjusting something in its hands. My eyes widened as I found myself mumbling under my breath…

"…pump the emitter shield…shoulder…aim…breath…fi…"

I lunged to my left, rolling out of the way as a tiny green speck of light sot past where I'd been standing and popped into the dust where my shadow had just darkened the soil. I steadied my crouched form with one arm as my eyes tightened on the stick-figure on the chimney.

…the Fenton Spook-Sniper, model A3 with prototype digital scope. I knew it was just the prototype, because that's why my mom didn't nail me on the first round. As I counted off the firing procedure once again, I tried to remember what my father had been writing on his napkin the last time I'd been forced to eat with the family. As I lip-synched the phrase 'Fire', I remembered his handwriting staining the rib-stained paper.

_Elevated Targets._

Before the well-aimed speck of negatively charged energy could pass through the left side of my forehead, I was floating in the air noiselessly as I watched my mother, who was draped over the chimney now six feet in front of me, check her scope again and lightly grunt as she swiveled the polished black barrel of the streamlined weapon along the space in the bricks she'd rested it in. I heard her falsetto whisper, her original Spanish accent very close to showing as she let her guard down.

"Where…?"

I felt my cheek tighten in a tiny smirk as I loudly called out, from right behind her.

"Good thing I didn't break the sound barrier. You would've seen this coming."

She swung her neck over her shoulder, pulling her rifle out of her makeshift firing station. Only to see me as I grabbed her wrists and locked them behind her in a pair of dark green handcuffs. The black sniper clattered down onto the hand-tiled roof and rolled down the slope of the roof into the rain gutter with a hollow thunk. I heard her yelp from under the helmet that ended right below her nose and wrapped around to the back of her neck. I snapped a second pair of ecto-cuffs onto her ankles as she yelled for my sisters.

I didn't cover her mouth or growl for her to stay quiet like any professional kidnapper, or a bondage enthusiast would. Actually, I gently eased her back against the chimney so she could sit comfortably. From behind her light blue eye-shield I could see her eyes go wide as she watched a nearly sunburned ghost in a tattered leather jacket give her a lighthearted smile and a two-finger salute before flexing his knees and knees and shooting off the roof into a low swoop over the tiny central park as her daughters ran out of a deserted pet store.

The green-armored one fired rounds after me like a jet-stream, barely even getting close enough to polish my shoes.

…the red-armored twin was too busy flailing around in circles with a large snake around her neck. That snake had been in the pet shop window, I think. I bet by now you can tell the twins apart, right?

I swerved to the left, swooping back around the little curved block of stores as Sherri's energy pack died and she was firing blanks. She looked down at her useless hand-blaster through her motorcycle-style helmet. She looked back up to see a three-pronged rope with weighted balls on each end spin through the air at her before she fell to the ground, limbs tight to her sides like a board as she struggled against the green ropes that had knotted themselves with their own vertical momentum. I nodded to myself as I touched down with my weight on one foot next to where she struggled. I admired my handiwork.

"…ah, good ol' energy melding…"

I dusted my hands off as if I'd actually done more than snapped my fingers to make these green handcrafts.

"Beats a utility belt."

My confident smirk straightened into a flash of remembrance.

"…speaking of young children running around in spandex, where's Ker…the other one?"

I looked down at my sister as she stopped struggling, slumping onto the sidewalk and nodding her head behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see my other sister sprawled out on a street bench with a rather pretty albino anaconda wrapped around her in a square knot. She was shivering, even though…that snake is asleep, isn't it? Yeah, she was attacked by a snake while it was asleep. I walked over to where its arrow-shaped head hung off the side of the bench, bending down to one knee and tilting my head at the snake's open but non-focused eyes.

"…Snakey…you just saved me another reluctant bondage scenario. Thank you."

It continued to hang motionlessly, napping as my Kerri whimpered from the circle of scales she'd wrapped herself in during the struggle. I held up my palm to the snake's head.

"High-five! Eh…actually, that's a bit cruel…well, hope you get to see Brazil some day."

With that I nodded at my newfound and limbless friend before standing up and panning the circle of stores once more, leaving the armored teenager to fend for herself against an uninterested predator. I would have said how I wished I had the power to talk to snakes like the one kid in the glasses, but settled for.

"…okay, where'd the old guy go…"

My question was answered not my Kerri's plea to not let the fangless snake to bite her, but by the door to the freestanding RV swinging open and banging against the silver siding. I spotted my father's navy-blue suit filling the doorway. Real stealthy. This guy should have done CIA work during that second Cold War we had with Japan about how they always got the better cheat codes in console games. It wasn't really an international affair, Congress just wanted to take a Delorean through the Coruscant Highway like the kids in Japan could. Without a Game-Piranha that deleted your data all the time.

…oh yeah, yeah, my father stomping out of the RV with a garbage-bin sized cannon barrel over his shoulder. I stood there next to a public drinking fountain, arms crossed and my eyebrows twitching in preparation for another of his one-liners. He glared over at me with his arms spread from his hips and his feet planted, eyes squinted in a manner that would get a lawsuit from Clint Eastwood. He bellowed in a slow, deliberate tone.

"…you mess with a Fenton's cubs…you have to take the BEAR!"

My eyebrows finished their preparation and shot up into my forehead, disappearing behind my silver bangs. I slowly whistled as he continued glaring at me like I was wearing a black cowboy hat.

"…fill in the blanks…gotcha'…"

He responded with a drawn-out yell and a round from his little…well, grossly oversized blast launcher. The familiar ball of green light shot out at an angle and drifted down towards my chest at the speed of a sprinting dog. So that's how he managed to hit me, with my back turned. I literally just stepped a foot to the side, letting the flaming basketball of a projectile whoosh over my shoulder without batting an eye. A yell of annoyance, followed by me tilting my head as if looking at an abstract painting. Letting the second round whiz by my ear by a few inches.

My father's rather handsome, chiseled face had bent down so far you could see his gray hairs under the greasy layer of Just-For-Men my mom gave him every few days while he watched Monday Night Manly-Ball. Eh, as of last year 'football' is now soccer and only soccer. That's the only name they could give to the other sport. I personally don't get it, the guys run around with batting cages on their heads to be considered manly? I didn't even get headgear…Oh, here comes another one.

I side-stepped another blast, managing to hold in a yawn as my father dug around for another one-liner. He…eh…doesn't actually take on ghosts like this that often. He has back problems, so the liberated and more capable female Fentons do most of the work while he supervises with his amazing knowledge of the trade. He's not lazy, I've seen him guzzle a bottle of Tylenol on some of his worst days because of his back. I'm guessing they had a bottle on the RV, judging by what he yelled next as I felt around in my pockets for a stick of gum.

"You think you're fast, eh? Well, how about…"

He ended with a ear-scratching 'THIS', pulling a handheld infinitely more accurate anti-ghost-fire-arm (AGFR) and firing six shots at rapid-fire that I most likely wouldn't be able to dodge by bending down to tie my shoelace. Heck, I'd probably take every shot to the chest and be dead before I hit the pavement.

…hadn't I been standing two feet behind him unwrapping that stick of gum the exact moment after he pulled the handgun. As his battle cry faded and he lowered his pistol to admire his handiwork, it hit him that he hadn't actually hit anything. He slowly looked around the by now burnt-looking park and tightened the grip on his weapon as I popped the stick into my mouth and started chewing, silently as to not break the mood.

Apparently not silent enough, my mouth must have been dry from the slight blood loss or the in-air maneuvering. The second my front teeth hit the peppermint grid surface of the gum, my father spun on both heels and swung the barrel of his mark up so it was leveled at my head. I did the same, except with an extended index finger and cocked thumb instead of a gun.

This quick second of aiming and finger-pointing ended us in a point-blank stand off, both of our weapons/hands aimed at the other in an identical firing posture that he had drilled into me from age five. My mom was a stickler for gun control, I had to start learning late.

The same instant he slammed the trigger, I popped my thumb up and fired a marble-sized green flame straight at the barrel of his green-plated gun. The blast collided and sent his arm back and straining against his shoulder socket as his own shot careened off into the open air and hopefully missed any nearby birds.

I stayed in my firing pose as his gun fell out of his hand and clattered to the cement behind him as he grabbed the twisted shoulder and grunted as his eyes snapped closed from the strained tendon. As he squeezed the shoulder through his jumpsuit to make sure it wasn't dislocated, I ceremonially blew the nonexistent smoke off my pointed finger before crossing my arms and waiting for him to recover, standing comfortably a mere few feet from where he recovered from the whiplash I'd given his right arm.

When his features became less strained and his eyes opened and saw I was still there he stumbled back a few steps, his posture falling from heroic to confusion and fear as I let my eyes tear into his like green straight-blades. He'd finally looked at my face, after eternal-seeming minutes of just firing at some featureless ghost for the sake of it being a ghost. It occurred to me my father had, despite his career, probably never looked a ghost in the eyes.

His carved features weren't fearful. Just blank. He was too proud to be afraid of an entity that had just flashed into his life and would painfully end it without a second thought. As he caught himself stumbling and stopped to stand his ground, his shoulders raising as his clear-blue eyes locked on me with a clenched jaw. I flashed back a flat-line scowl and a lowered brow. I le my left foot move forward, causing him to take another step back. I said with an air of nonchalance, rasping my voice for obvious identification reasons.

"James Fenton…"

His tight eyes widened slightly at the mention of his name. He stated back in an official tone he used for business associates he wanted to strangle and bury in a lime plant.

"…Inviso-Bill…"

His eyes, that painfully reminded me of my own tightened again as he growled.

"Or do you prefer Danny Phantom nowadays? My grandfather never specified…"

My scowl loosened, as did my trademark eyebrow as I placed my left heel down and stepped forward with my right, sending him back another foot without either showing any notice. I shrugged slightly, ending with a smirk.

"..._just_ Phantom…"

I took another step, but this time he stood his ground. We ended up eye to eye, my neck barely tilted to accommodate the slight inch of height I had over him. I saw the edge in his eyes, this wasn't the thrill seeking addiction of my mother and sisters. This was a seasoned ghost hunter. He actually moved forward, our noses a few inches apart as he defiantly stated.

"…my father _died_ taking you down…"

…if I hadn't been steeled to shock, I would have dropped my act and plain out stumbled back in confusion. I kept up the staring contest and the cool exterior edge, but behind my nearly dead green eyes he had sent me reeling. I barely noticed when he finished.

"And some day…I'm going to finish the job."

The inside of my head was a riot control job, but my mouth shot back without my brain having a say.

"…is that why you tried to be the next Jack Fenton? So you could avenge your father _metaphorically_?"

The storm of revelation and confusion that was battling my mind mirrored itself on my father's face as my body continued its verbal attack. My legs moved themselves forward, forcing him back as he went pale against the rush of blood in his square face. I heard some one in my voice sneer.

"…one football injury later, and you pull out this ghost deal to add purpose to your life?"

…this wasn't about ghosts…was it…? Who was saying this? Why couldn't I stop? I saw my father's jaw drop, sweat starting to glisten on his forehead as this ghost encounter became something much more personal. I continued backing him out of the street and towards the line of storefronts. My shoulders were loose besides my neck, contrasting my father's sudden slump as I took the psychological upper hand. My rant became raspier as I went on, the scenery becoming blurry as I focused on his confused gaze.

"…and then you have a son…so you can have some one else do all the dirty work…"

He stopped backing away as his lower back was pushed against a park bench, letting me advance until my eyes were an inch from his. He struggled not to shut them out of fear as I went on in a monologue that I hadn't prepared, but came off as perfectly rehearsed. His mouth moved as if to protest. Not a sound.

"…you force it all on him…_all of it!_"

This wasn't a dramatic stand-off between two honorable males. This was something else. I found myself nearly yelling in the rasp the Phantom spoke in.

"…you started hunting ghosts because of your father…and you took away your son's only childhood…_why?_"

I heard his breathing become shallow. He couldn't speak if he tried. Neither could I. But who ever was saying these things could.

"…he'd never even seen a ghost, and you kept at it…every waking hour, the teachings of Jack Fenton…you didn't' care that he couldn't even _READ?_"

He managed to gasp out something that sounded like 'No'. I heard myself yell. My face hadn't shifted color or even shown signs of the rage that was flowing.

"You…didn't…care…"

Finally, his eyes closed and he swung his face away as I advanced another inch, nearly spitting.

"…you _really _want to make the world a safer place?"

He didn't answer, just waiting for me to kill him. He still had four loaded ecto-guns on his belt, but he knew it wouldn't be worth it. I finished, nearly whispering.

"Try just _giving_ a damn…"

Without a final spit in his face or even a last glare, I backed away from where he was shaking against the bench. I turned my back without fear, walking off to the center of the abandoned park before fading out of sight and shooting off into the cloudy sky. Leaving behind a slightly damaged, but otherwise unaltered town square. My mother, still propped against the tallest chimney and staring at her suddenly freed limbs. My sisters off near the drinking fountain, Sherri helping Kerri dislodge the comatose reptile. And my father. Slumped down onto a bench in his own world, staring blankly off at the air in front of him as he tried to understand what had driven him to this state. And who. I was wondering the same thing.

Six Hours Later

The room was dark. The shades pulled to block out the stadium lights outside. The lamps dead in their sockets and the door closed and locked. The only light came from the cell phone screen clutched in my trembling palm as I held it tightly against my right ear. I was drenched in sweat, not caring as it ran down my bare back and down my shaking arms. The room was chilled from the air conditioning. The temperature didn't have me sweating like this.

My eyes were closed, finalizing the darkness as I sat slumped on the edge of my bed, waiting for the tiny speaker in my hand to respond. It finally did, after who knows how long of a delay. Time always drags in the dark.

"So you…saw them pull up and…?"

The cold, yet assuring voice was retracing everything I'd just told it with a stutter. I sighed and confirmed in a quiet, raw voice.

"…and I had them out of commission in about three minutes…maybe two, my watch has been slow lately."

The calm, calculating voice cut off into a scoff.

"Alan. This is serious, pass on the sarcasm."

I gritted my teeth, my eyed closing tighter.

"Sam…I know every inch of their tactics. Every procedure. Every drill. Every response. Every move."

She went silent again. She knew perfectly well that the insane amount of supernatural education hadn't faded after so many years of being normal. She remembered how I twitched when I slept, gasping out attack sequences and ghost breeds. She _now_ knew that the knowledge went both ways. That show in the little round town wasn't a record-breaking performance for me. I just knew them inside and out. It was throwing a wrench in a machine you helped build.

"…and then, Jim took you on…"

She sounded pained when she said her son's name. I confirmed, trying to wet my dry throat by swallowing.

"He got one good hit in before it all started. Never got close again."

She made a noise that she often made while nodding, telling me to go on in the story I'd told her twice already in the last hour, in the same position I've been in since I got home.

"We…started saying all that witty crap…we're Fentons, it's what we do."

She would have laughed, if she didn't know what came next. I reached up and grabbed my forehead, wincing as I finished.

"And then…Christ, I just…"

She cut me off, in a nearly soothing tone that she was trying her hardest to pull off.

"Alan! You don't have to feel…!"

I cut her right back, my posture slamming itself straight as my eyes snapped open.

"_THAT WASN'T ME!"_

She fell silent as I stood up next to my bed, yelling into the phone.

"_I wasn't the one saying those things!"_

She stayed silent. This wasn't a part of the story I'd told her. This was something I had to get out before it ate my insides. I began pacing my pitch black room, not hitting any furniture due to my heightened night vision. I began to calm down, sighing.

"…that…wasn't…me…"

She waited for another outburst, I stayed quiet. She asked.

"…I…I'm not following…"

I inhaled some tears and explained.

"Sam…when I started saying all that…to my Dad, I wasn't in control…"

She waited for an explanation, knowing she didn't need to ask after all these years.

"I…I never even felt that way!"

She suddenly broke off in the assertive, teaching tone she usually used.

"Alan. You have a right to these feelings."

I stopped pacing, nearly shouting.

"About what!"

She sighed, the sympathy giving way to reason.

"…because of the way your parents raised…the way they groomed you to be a ghost hunter, you had severe problems with daily living…"

My tongue froze in mid response. My eyes stared off into the murky shadows of the room as she continued in a practiced reading voice.

"You had problems learning because of the stress at home. At age twelve, you were nearly illiterate."

I meekly retorted.

"…I'm learning disabled…"

She nearly laughed.

"Learning disabled? After I _threatened_ my own son with child services unless he left you alone, you were suddenly learning advanced comprehension. I've never seen some one take in knowledge like you did after you stopped the Fenton business, Alan. I'm surprised you didn't get a full scholarship."

I held my tongue, not wanting to use the letters lining my waste basket as a shield against her verbal assault.

"…Jim didn't have it easy with one parent. Jack and Maddie took care of him when things got tough, and I loved them for that."

I felt the sweat chill on my back as I stopped pacing, standing in the empty dungeon of a bedroom as I suddenly realized my father's intentions.

"Jack took Jim in like a son. Told him all those ghost stories. They left most ghosts alone after Danny came out to them. But still, Jack was Jack."

I slowly lowered myself onto the edge of my bed, my eyes still wet but narrowed in concentration as the other side of my mind took over. She continued.

"Jim took Jack passing away hard. And after he hurt his back in high school, he gave up on sports to live up to his father figure."

I felt my mouth lip-synch my thoughts as she went on in another history lecture.

"…he even told himself that Danny Phantom, the ghost Jack loved talking about so much, was involved in Danny passing on."

My vow of silence ended.

"…what did you tell him?"

I'm not sure how we handle subjects like this so well. She's a Gothic. I'm a detective, some guess.

"Car accident. I never told him about Danny to let it all stay behind us. I never told him that story he gives out to magazines."

"…that his father died taking down Inviso-Bill…"

…I knew from Sam all my life that my grandfather had died young. I knew my dad's stories that he gave in interviews weren't always real. Before that night in the Fenton Museum, I just though Inviso-Bill was my father's invention. Or just a ghost that disappeared at the same time as Danny.

"I've tried, Alan. But your father is just like Jack. I love him, but you can't move him an inch."

My face fell into my open hand.

"…I think I just sent him on a round trip. For all he knows, some nameless ghost he was toying with turned the tables and happened to know about the family secret."

She asked, confused.

"He…called you Danny…"

"…he calls _everyone under the grave _Inviso-Bill! It's like his racial slur for ghosts, think Uncle Tom. He likes to act out this vengeance thing in case any cameras are around."

I could practically hear her purple eyes narrow.

"…_this_, is why I hated him being a jock…"

I nodded slightly, glancing at the digital clock on the phone screen.

"…well, thanks for being here…"

She finished in a know-it-all voice.

"I was the one who dumped this on you, it's the least I can do."

She hung up. Right as I remembered what I'd been screaming about and yelled for her not to hang up. I tossed the phone onto my bedspread, grunting at my stupidity as I stood up and went to turn on the light. As I felt for the switch I saw something in the mirror behind my desk. A dark, angular outline with two green eyes cutting out of the shadows. It belonged in a horror movie. I saw the green orbs narrow as I asked the piece of reflective glass.

"Who…are you…"

…it never answered. I just flicked on the light to find myself looking at my own reflection, my green eyed faded to blue as if they'd never even been.

…it wasn't me who finally confronted my father for what he unintentionally, and mistakenly did to my childhood. Up until now, I haven't even let myself realize it was real. Who ever finally broke the silence and ended it all in that park…wasn't Alan Fenton.

…the Phantom isn't…_real_, is he?

Author's Notes

…what, the heck happened here? Continued directly next chapter, for those with too much of a life to figure it out. Right now Alan is a bit tunneled in on this event, next chapter you'll see his family's reaction to the encounter and what was going on while he dealt with the aftershock. This isn't angst for the sake of angst. This is precisely what was bound to happen when the Fentons encountered the Phantom. Speaking of which, is Alan going through a good/evil split personality plot? I've always avoided that conflict, so no. The Phantom, as some may have guessed, is possibly another side of Alan's closed personality that he thought died with Walt. The Phant' isn't some artificial superhero personality like Alan tells himself and Kirby. Alan, in an odd way, is the phony secret identity. He just doesn't know it yet. Most likely you won't understand this, until a few more chapters pass. Exactly my point. Also next chapter. More ghosts, less Fentons. Also, more boxing and more focus on Alan's life rather than these one-time events that take up so many pages. Will update soon.


	23. Chapter 23

DISClAIMER: See previous entries.

Pre-Note: I cannot be more sorry about the delay. These last couple weeks have been...well, I'm not going to trouble you guys with my issues. I'll give you this much. I've been using my mainstream media reach to a good cause. And as a serious favor my 'step-cousins', who I personally believe were spawned from three sticsk of butter and radioactive waste, suddenly decided on Muay Thai Kickboxing as their serious hobby of the week. guess who has to train them. Very Alan-heavy at times, and references to darker dramatic elements such as marriages and alcohol. I'll do a typo-homocide tomorrow, don't worry.

One of the natural responses to trauma or shock is the overpowering need to sleep when it's all over. You know what I mean. You're not physically tired or even fatigued, you just need to shut down to keep yourself from falling any lower into depression and confusion. I must have spent a week in bed when Walt passed on. Then a quick month or so out cold on a couch somewhere. I don't need to tell you how ironic it is that for some reason I no longer need, and am nearly incapable of sleeping.

…it still hasn't sunken in with Kirby and my subconscious that I'm awake twenty-four hours a day. What purpose does it serve? Are ghosts nocturnal? Do they even sleep in the first place? I can understand flying, the whole phasing thing and 'ghost sense'. But I've rarely, if ever, had to take on a ghost during the lonely hours of the night I once spent sleeping. Danny had to deal with his legs disappearing our from under him when a girl's skirt rode up. I got the ecto-insomnia in the family.

I'm explaining this so you can picture the morning after the affair with the Fentons a bit more clearly. My ears pricked at the sound of the locked door clicking open as a hair-pin popped the tumblers of the keyhole out of the way. The now defenseless door was pushed open and shut again as I kept my eyes trained on the stamped letters of the old hardcover I had propped open on my chest as I reclined on my nearly untouched bedclothes with my head leaning against the metal headboard. I didn't even breathe differently to acknowledge the uninvited visitor, I just kept skimming the pages of the book I'd buried myself in after the previous night's events.

My pupils didn't stray from the inked passage as my wall-mounted television clicked on and the silence of my page turning was broken by the distinctive chatter of a fresh stick of gum being chewed. I cleared my throat with a closed mouth cough before muttering.

"Just don't spit that in the plant again, that vine at the top is sprouting purple leaves."

I finished the chapter, ending my trance. I eased the seasoned book closed and glanced past my nose at the pair of flannel-covered legs stretched out next to where I was reclined. I followed the four and a half miles of legs to a tent-sized tee shirt that I actually remembered being given to me before I stuffed it in the back of my closet because the front was plastered with a stylized 'FW' with a decal of a chrome female figure with a ghostly tail instead of legs. My father must have saw the original on a mud-flap somewhere and been inspired to further stupify it.

But enough about the shirt that I was trying to forget, you don't need three guesses to know figure out who was wearing it. She was stretched out on her stomach, bronzed face propped up between her hands like a kid watching cartoons.

…actually, this made me remember what day it was. Saturday. Saturday morning. This is why she just broke into and entered my room, her guest room doesn't get the Spanish channels I get. Namely the one that plays cartoons around this time of day and week.

…what, would you have preferred 'Kirby barged into my room to watch cartoons'?

She hadn't acknowledged my remark about her gum chewing habits. Not until the next commercial, when she turned to look at me over one shoulder.

"…weren't you wearing those jeans last night?"

I just shrugged, swinging my legs over hers and walking over to my closet. As I grabbed a stack of clothes off my dresser and walked into the bathroom I explained with a hoarse sigh.

"Long night."

By the time the next commercial break rolled around, I was pulling the door open wearing a fresh set of denim and a wrinkled tee shirt. I plopped down into my worn desk chair, combing my hair with the fingers of my right hand as I asked with a slightly sore throat.

"How'd the poker game go?"

I hadn't caught the end of it. Wasp's complaining and the conversation passed behind the cards seemed like a distant memory. She snapped her gum and replied, not taking her eyes off the flat-screen.

"The game died after you left. But Wasp kept' asking about my mom, we ended up hopping a train back home so they could meet her."

I slowly nodded a few times before my eyes snapped open and I spun in my chair to face her. She met this with a sigh, closing her eyes but not turning away from the screen. Before I even opened my mouth she finished.

"…and I completely forgot about the houseguest…"

…I had been going to ask if our grandmother wasn't occupying Kirby's old room anymore. Or even better, if she'd finally dropped dead yet. Her eyes remained closed as she answered the question I hadn't asked yet.

"She was awake when we got there. Wasp stayed in the studio with Mom, but Aron came up to meet my dad…"

I nearly winced, knowing what happened instantly. She pried her eyes open, trying to focus back on her cartoons as she finished.

"He got an earful…but later on he said he knew what we were going through."

I glanced down at my rug, explaining.

"Aron's aunt had the same…problem…he watched her go through the twelve steps. It'll be eight years next month."

I reached down to pull a pair of semi-clean socks out from under my desk, flipping them the outsides back out before slipping them on.

"It's weird. His aunt hasn't had a drop since she quit, really turned around. Other times…"

The room fell silent. Except for the sounds of those dang moving drawings having their little adventures. You'll never see a cartoon character stop swinging their swords to talk about their alcoholic grandmother that has been a burden on the family for decades. That's why they're not real.

My Aunt Janet, as I've poorly mentioned, has shown believable 'psychic' abilities. Nothing flashy, nothing she ever bothered telling anyone in the show business about. On the other hand…this woman can meet you in line at the farmer's market, shake your hand and instantly know that your childhood pet is sick and it's been tearing you up inside. And she'll give you the name of a vet she knows. Then wish you a nice day and leave you with your hand outstretched and your jaw limp.

She's not a mind-reader, I don't think. Touching. That's how it might work. Like, touching an old deck of cards and seeing what the guy who owned them was like. How good he was at cards, what kind of guy was he, maybe even a third person flashback of a few card games.

This isn't some earth-shattering power that even has a real purpose. She has never in her life tried to use it for profit. She'd be too busy dancing and teaching if she wanted to.

I grew up with this, so I'm jaded to it. But Aron and Wasp had asked Kirby because they wondered why I always made jokes about the TV psychic Wasp gets her lotto numbers from. It's like having a neighbor with a vintage car, just a fun little trivia bit that pops up on Jeopardy a lot. It's actually more of an annoyance sometimes, you ever try throwing a surprise party for a chick with a mind's eye?

My uncle is proud of his wife's quirk, somehow. A detective and a psychic, I wish I'd seen their wedding reception. The groom examining the silverware for traces of heroin and the bride reading the best man's palm.

Well, it has a darker side to it. By now you've figured out my grandmother on my mother's side is a bit…off. Forty years of hard drinking and a bitter personality to begin with. She refers to her oldest daughter as a mistake in God's eyes. I've also old you why she would think this. Whenever she gets her hands on something better than whiskey she'll go on for hours how Janet's other DNA donor took advantage of her. And that children born from that crime are doomed.

I've seen my aunt trap a spider with a piece of paper and take it up to their old attic instead of just killing it on sight. And that hag expects us to believe her father was a sick criminal? Janet didn't inherit a single personality trait from her mother. Who ever her real father was, I'd like to shake his hand. And ask him why his offspring could freakin' read minds.

…right when things get dramatic…don't let your kids watch Fresh Prince reruns, it turns them into quick-witted idiots.

Eventually the cloud of family guilt faded, leaving my cousin rolling on my bed at the simple humor of her cartoons while I popped up a gridsheet on my computer and dissected the design of an unusual portal generator Masters Corp. developed a few years before…eh, have I actually told you any of this? Here I am writing poetry about my family secrets and you're wondering what Vlad's up to.

I'd tell you if I knew.

I spend entire nights staring at pictures of blurry blueprints and power grids. I've barely managed to pull together a new lead about Danny's…you get it.

First of all, the chapter in Val's third book about ghost annihilation. From a technological point of view, you'd need something that would take down a human. For instance, a handgun firing ecto-energy would do as much damage as a real handgun with real bullets would to a human. The limitations? You'd need the skill to use the thing in the first place, let alone hit a fast-moving or extremely resilient target. And even then, a bullet isn't a guaranteed kill. Ask my uncle, he has fifteen of them lodged in his body and he taught Kirby how to do cheerleader kicks.

Don't. Ask.

Then there's the ultra-techie side. Giant lasers, ecto-explosives, electrocution, all the fun stuff.

I imagine, this would be the case if Vlad didn't have more ghost powers than a BMW has frame options. Neither Val or Tucker ever studied the natural abilities of ghosts against other ghosts. Sam's told me about al the times Danny nearly lost t Vlad, but from what I've picked up Vlad wasn't a killer. He was trying to recruit Danny, not destroy him. While trying to bag Maddie Fenton.

Somewhere along the line, Vlad started shifting from a 'Take over the World on Weekends' deal to insanity. He doesn't sound that bad, actually. Packers fan. Easy guy to work for. Dresses up like Dracula and throws great parties. He sounded like a nice villain to have, really. And 'Vlad Junior' seems to show most of these traits. For some reason he just stuck to business as usual and the occasional outbreak after Danny passed, but the Fenton family line took care of that.

And behind all this, was a man who was possibly behind the deaths of numerous innocent people in those schools. Why? This guy has a clean record, never even lied on his taxes. Then all of a sudden a kid he was grooming to fight Danny takes it out on non-ghosts.

Plasmius wasn't being a pyschotic criminal mastermind. He was an idiot.

He found kids who were easy to take advantage of. He mustn't have figured they'd take out their angst on a higher scale than just hunting down a ghost kid. Keith, the first after Val, took his own life in the process. Nonetheless Vlad kept providing ecto-explosives. The first few incidents may have been accidents. The stupid kid set up the timer, lured Danny in and forgot to get the other innocent and very mortal students out of the way. Or maybe the kid just skipped Danny entirely, they just wanted the firepower.

And it all comes down to me. The last time he had a chance at this. I was a victim, I would have been easy to manipulate. He knew from the media that I was a 'talented' ghost hunter by force. Heck, I would have been the next Valerie Gray if he'd gotten his claws on me.

Except I probably would have taken it to the extremes. I admit it. I hated my existence. For a good year I would have taken the weapons and been stupid enough to do it. Until I met Walt. You know the rest.

…but what for? He kept on recruiting teenagers after Danny passed. Why? He wasn't after an heir to his empire. He had a network of hostile ghosts under his palm, he didn't need the manpower. He needed some one to fight ghosts for him. And not just Danny.

He needed some one, me, to take down ghosts that threatened his power. Think about it. There might be ghosts bigger than Vlad out there. And he's not going to take them on himself and possibly lose. He needed a hit-man. Some one kept on the low side, who the rest of his empire would never know about in case there was a revolt. Look at Skulker. He's not exactly a happy cubicle mouse. If he went up against Vlad, V-Man would need back-up.

And I have a feeling Skulk is more popular and intimidating than the boss could ever be. The product of a one night stand between a Predator and the Governator versus a guy dressed like he learned jujitsu via mind-probe. I'll let the nerds work that one out.

Where did I get all this? Is it the truth? I'm not sure. But this is the fruit of weeks upon weeks of under-the-table investigating. Here's a clue. His former head technician has a bit of a fine scotch affection. Buy him a bottle on a Friday night and he'll be singing the code-names for every project Masters ever put into action. I called him a cab afterward, don't thing I let him drive home like that. But man, he had a great singing voice. He and Kirby should do karaoke some time.

And he's not the only one. Wasp's father, Tucker, had once again started pretending it all never happened. He thought my sisters are doing a good job of fighting paranormal crime and that Kirby and I were just knowing bystanders. Sidekicks. Right. I'd tried a few times asking him about the old days. No luck, he's closed up tighter than Wasp's jawbones when you mention the word 'Reno'.

And one more tidbit. Did you know that ghosts tend to literally spill their guts when you ask them politely a few details about their boss? It helps that I usually have them by the jugular, but politeness is key. As in keep the growling curse words down to seven a sentence. I usually wash my own mouth out with toothpaste afterwards, but that language has an effect on those guys.

My thoughtful self-briefing was interrupted by my cousin rolling off the bed and landing with a soft thud onto the rug, yelping a Spanish word you'd rather not know the meaning of. This is where I got my cursing problem from, she's a bad influence I tell ya'! Usually I'd leave her there, but hey, it was Saturday.

Later, An Hour Before Noon

I managed to gasp a bit of air into my lungs as my weight settled onto the padded dojo floor. Soon enough replaced by a dull pain in the center of my back, like some one was balancing a log on my back with my face buried in the mat. A minute later my breathing became more steady. A clear, but very feminine voice chimed.

"…see what I mean?"

My voice was slightly muffled, I was talking straight into the black rubber with my nose bent to the side.

"Nort' Reeree…"

A sigh, the dead weight on my back sharpened as the two bare feet balanced on my sprawled form shifted their toes against the back of my black gi teasingly.

"Alan, you're not exactly another one of my students. But you have to learn how to adapt faster to unusual opponents."

Another sparring session. Oh sweet joy. My aunt surprised me this time. She hadn't even bothered to wrangle a few belts for me to spar with, this was one on one. And I wasn't the one on top. Literally. She continued.

"Boxing left you amazing reflexes when it comes to street tactics. It's been hard for me to find partners for you because even against a group, you're one tough cracker."

…I'm the white guy in a family full of Cubans. I would have been offended if I hadn't been sampling the flavor of the padding. It's got kind of a licorice taste to it, actually.

"So, I decided to put you against some one who uses excessive acrobatics and is nearly at your conditioning level."

I grumbled, tilting my head to the side and spiting out a piece of dust.

"And technique out of a wire-fu film. A flying back-flip into my forehead, how the heck do I block that?"

The obviously female toes continued ruffling my gi teasingly as the unseen voice answered.

"You tell me."

I closed my eyes slowly and sighed as much as I could with a pair of feet pressing my middle into the floor.

"Great, great…you're supposed to be the sensai here, and you're testing this stuff on a _brown belt?"_

The toes flexed and tried to tickle my back, I winced, not exactly in a joking mood.

"You're the one asking to take on my black belts, I didn't specify who'd be wearing them."

I growled, forcefully.

"…just…get…Kirby, to _GET OFF MY BACK!"_

Two female giggles rang out against the bar plaster walls as the feet painfully pushed into my sine and hopped off me, walking over to stand next to my Aunt as she continued to observe my flattened form. As I lifted my chest off the mat, looking up to glare at them I grunted.

"Thank you…"

As I dusted my ebony gi off and pulled the knot of my earth-toned belt to the side of my waist, my cousin and sparring partner and teacher simply reached up and tightened their identical knotted braids. Aunt Maria was the one who started Kirby growing her hair out, longer hair is supposedly easier to manage than short hair supposedly. They always just tie it all up and it's out of the way, those athletic neck-cuts girls get always swings around too much in sparring.

My aunt and I were clad in identically sewn but much differently sized gis that were jet black instead of the usual white. Hers was comfortably worn and hung on her frame like a holstered gun, mine was still stiff and probably had a few tags stuck on the interior somewhere. I walked in with a full duffel bag and before I could change into my whites she just threw this thing at me. I didn't ask why. Not because she's a lightweight and middleweight mixed martial arts champion and has belts in various revered styles, but because she's female and Cuban. Kirby takes after my aunts, enough said.

Speaking of Kirby, she wasn't exactly as uniform as our more traditional attire. No, she walked out of the changing room in a custom-tailored little outfit she had her friend whip up in her dress shop. A dark purple center-split vest closed with a series of decorative buttons. It was cut right at the shoulder, showing off her notably skinny but nonetheless athletic tone. The pants were slightly baggy, to still be unique while allowing function. With her arms crossed and her head cocked to the side, she looked like a Mortal Kombat character.

She gets the purple power ninja outfit. I get the generic black gi. What gives? Well, tied around the slim-cut waist of her spunky little number was what kept my sarcasm at bay and my humility on overtime. A simple piece of black fabric tied in a side-knot just like my brown one was. Every time I look at that I remember how if I had stayed on track and never left this place to train with Walt, I'd probably be working here as an assistant teacher.

Kirby, believe it or not, had been trained to the point of an expert but kept it to a casual place in her life. In high school she stuck to the gymnastics team and the more musical areas. Who ever would have thought an upcoming guitar singer could also flip around like Yoda on a sugar rush, I'd like to try their medication. Whatever rank she was, she just handed me my white belt all over again. Long before I was a two hundred pound, ripped boxer, I was the little guy getting beat by the tall girl in point sparring. She just flew circles around me, let's leave it at that.

And she acted like we'd just shaken hands. She watched me get up to make sure I was okay before turning to our aunt/sensai and asking in Spanish.

"Can I check out the back room real quick?"

My aunt turned, arms still crossed as she creaked her neck up to look at her much, much taller student. Despite the foot of height Kirby had on her, she just smiled a little and nodded.

"Just don't take anything nailed down…"

As a thank you she recieved was a tight hug and a face full of purple fabric before the little ninja ran off to dig through the boxes of supplies in the back room. She liked taking overstock from the school to decorate her room with. My aunt lost her stoic air for a second, blinking wide eyes set high in a tanned heart-shaped face before turning to where I waited with shrug. She commented when the door slammed shut, echoing off the bare walls.

"…done for the day?"

I nodded, my neck aching from the light-contact but stinging high kicks it'd taken. She nodded in response, not asking why. This was our new pattern. she runs me into the ground until I finally get tired or feel like I've learned something. I tend to hit the canvas more often than I feel fulfilled, you may have guessed.

"Good. Now, mind telling me why you're doing this?"

I stopped rubbing my splintering elbow to jerk my eyes u at the tiny woman with wild, confused eyes. She returned an eternally calm, yet pressing stare. I quickly regained my formal stance, answering in a false tone of calm.

"…um…spiritual enlightenment?"

Her thin lips curled into a dime-sized smirk.

"…yeah, yeah…I've seen the commercials. I mean right _now."_

I shot an emotionless, blank stare down at where she stood as she casually stepped forward until I was looking down at her in downhill eye contact. She had to be less than half my size. Yet I felt like a kid in time out.

"I…what?"

She elaborated, uncrossing her thin arms as her dark eyes tightened.

"…seven years ago, one of my best students left to go rough it as a boxer."

I felt the blood drain from my reddened face. Gee, who could that be?

"I can't say I was impressed. Your trainer charmed me into letting you go, but I've never held American boxing in high regards."

No kidding. She never watched me fight. Heck, she didn't even know I was 'The Phantom' in the sports pages. As she continued this sudden lecture, I felt a sudden cold sensation creeping down my neck. I figured it was my swat cooling so I ignored it as she continued. She closed her eyes, shrugging with her neck as if to admit something.

"…until you completely changed my mind, and even made me rethink my teaching methods to compare with whatever it is your trainer did."

The cold feeling crept higher as I felt my eyebrows jump. She's…_complimenting_ me? _Why?_

"Honestly. It's amazing. Nearly eighty pounds of lean muscle in five years! And your conditioning…!"

I felt my jaw loosen as, after years of seeing me at reunions and whenever I stopped by to visit, she actually noticed my physique. I would have went to stop her, but by now her eyes were open and the teacher's air was gone. She wasn't lecturing, she was…talking?

"…I don't know what you did differently. I don't. But when you came back last month asking to start training again, you were…you weren't a student anymore. You were a fighter."

…must…not…say '…that explains the tattoo…'

"I just don't know what happened. You went from just another one of my nephews who actually had some potential, to…Alan, you're beyond my belt system."

I went to ask what she meant, not noticing the cold feeling on my tonsils. She thankfully cut me off.

"Everyone who comes in here is ranked not color and age. I give my students belts when they show improvement, this is why it takes so long. With your parents riding you like they were, you may have been a red belt right now if you'd stayed."

…red…belt? I took me twelve years to get to _brown_! That's nearly a belt every TWO YEARS! Seven more years would have gotten me one belt rank? Has my aunt been hit too many times in the head or is her calculator upside down! I wasn't aware of it until much later, but as my teacher confessed about my recent fighting ability a tiny wisp of blue mist had escaped from the side of my mouth.

"…I knew about your problems at school. And they were holding you back in here. Before you left, I was tempted to make you take a break anyways. But now you're back…"

The blue wisp became a puff of smoke, I was too busy staring blankly down at my aunt as she let this all out.

"…Alan. You're a new man. And a better fighter than I could have ever made you. I think we both know that…what the heck is that?"

Suddenly one of her calloused hands was pointed up at my chin. I glanced down, expecting to see my lip bleeding or a tooth missing, but it was worse. I finally saw the blue mist, clapping a hand over my mouth and backing away from the intimate stare-down mumbling about the air conditioning.

My aunt's face swung back to her usual iced stare as my reaction gave away the importance of what she just saw.

She narrowed her nearly black eyes as I kept my mouth covered, trying to fake a sore lip out of desperation. Right as I went to make a run for the changing room, the silent confrontation was derailed as the sound of screeching tires sounded right outside the windows, our necks snapping towards the sound as a small parade of cars squealed by the view the school had of the quiet urban block it rested on.

The cars were followed by a small cluster of screaming civilians as they sprinting down the middle of the street, nearly trampling themselves in the process. Four eyebrows jumped in unison as some one yelled, loud enough to get through the usually sound-proof glass.

"RUN FOR YOUR WORTHLESS LIVES, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

…that was…assuring…as the mob went on down the street, their screams fading, we slowly turned to look at each other with equally confused expressions. I'd let my hand fall when the mob first appeared, making the constant stream of mist more obvious as the opened corner of my mouth kept it going. My aunt and I shared another blank stare before her eyes lowered to my mouth, then swiveled to the window again as a siren-blaring black and white tore by. She then glanced back up at me, her eyebrows lowering slightly before she spun on her heel without warning and started walking toward the back of the school, leaving me standing there with my breath glowing. She almost casually said.

"Kirby and I will be out back. I think you should go…change."

…change into my street clothes…and go out into a riot…either she was cracked, or she knew what was going on. I called after her as she opened the door to the stock room.

"I can explain…"

She waved it off, looking at me over one tiny shoulder with a shrug.

"Don't."

With that she closed the door, the lock clicking after her. I stared in pure, utter confusion for a few seconds before sighing and looking down at my sapphire breath.

"Well…better leather up, I guess…"

With a defeated shrug and a snap of two sore fingers, my sweat-soaked gi jacket was replaced with a rather chilled tee shirt and the much thicker jacket, my pants staying the same except for my suddenly wearing shoes. I reached looked up at my brow and blew a lock of silver away from my eye with my still glowing wind before looking back down at the window and launching myself through the unbroken glass and taking to the scream-filled skies.

Twenty Minutes Later

This, was not my day.

I was a couple dozen feet in the air, the battle had become aerial in a manner of seconds. I was currently growling and yelling Spanish insults as I struggled to slip my arms up out green tentacle that was binding my limbs to my side while trying to crush the wind out of my lungs. Floating a few yards away from where I struggled, floated a seven foot tall (…well, if she had legs, she was choking me with her tail) green-skinned woman with striking red eyes and an outfit that Kirby would want in different colors. She looked like a waitress at a casino I fought in once. Except with less fake gold and more self-esteem.

She was examining the manicured nails one crossed hand as she casually tried to squeeze the life out of me. She chimed in a rather heavy accent.

"I keep telling you, Ghost-Boy…no _man_ can take me on…!"

I grunted, giving up my masculine wiggling to just float there with her tail squeezing the layers of my jacket. I shot back in a full-winded voice despite my situation.

"What about Paul Newman?"

She glanced up from her nails with an annoyed expression. I looked at her calmly with an honest curiosity. She narrowed her crimson eyes.

"Never heard of him…"

I scoffed, making small talk despite my little hanging-over-shark-tank complex here.

"You kidding? C'mon, Cool Hand Luke?"

She just shook her bangs in a bored way as I slid my elbow out of her slightly relaxed tendril, hiding it behind my back as I continued.

"…well, it's not really a chick flick…you strike me as an eternally single girl, there's a reason for that."

A second later her burning red eyes were an inch from where my green ones smirked back. She growled in a beastly manner as my arm continued to free itself behind my back.

"_You're going to pay for that, you little…!"_

Her mouth froze in mid-threat, her tongue lashed out and her teeth gnashing as she stared at the outspread palm I held inches from her regal nose. Holding a billowing green flame the size of a softball. I sighed.

"…how about…you let go, and I not blast you all the way back to India with my bare hands?"

…it wasn't my best day for fighting _or_ insults…okay? She slowly reared back, instantly retracting her tail from my crumpled jacket and hissing.

"…it's always the idiots..."

I snapped, stretching my sore limbs but keeping the flame at ready.

"What was that?"

She snorted in disgust, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes as if she'd forgotten the point blank firing concept.

"_Puh-leaz! _This is so predictable! And now, you're going to wish me into your little thermos…_right?_"

…did…did Danny have like a bad break up with her or something? I'm expecting her to start accusing me of drinking her diet soda and not asking how she feels all the time. I rubbed my neck, suddenly remember that particular ghost gadget and explaining, much to her further disgust.

"Um…about, that…I kinda'…"

She narrowed her eyes.

"You…forgot the thermos?"

I nodded, smiling nervously. This wasn't a battle. This was a bad date. She smacked herself with one green palm, gritting her teeth.

"Oh, great…"

Her eyes snapped open as she turned to the side, still glaring at me and not acknowledging the flame I was aiming at her torso.

"You know what? I'm _done!_ I'm sick of this! Every time I try to ruin a few lives and have a good day, you come out on your lunch break and just wish me away!"

She started pacing like a true drama queen, in mid-air. I floated there, wondering whether to record this for Jerry Springer III or to tell her it's not her, it's me. She sighed painfully.

"…Dr. Spectra _was_ right! This wishing thing is just…just cliché! Sure, it makes me feel important and not worthless but…"

…what…the heck…is going on here…? She continued, I think she forgot I was even there.

"…I need to think this over…"

She spun on her tail to give me one last glare. I was tapping my foot in mid-air, waiting for it.

"We'll finish this…someday…"

With that, she disappeared in a wisp of green smoke that left my coughing. Smelled like cheap perfume. As the wind blew it away, leaving me alone above the wreckage of a elaborate fountain unveiling, and so utterly confused I needed either a hug or something to punch. I hung there like that for a few seconds until two bells rang out from my jacket, I quickly slipped out my phone and snapped it open.

"'Yo?"

A few sentences of garbled buzzing later. Man, I need a new servic.

"…yeah, I forgot the thermos…"

Buzz-buzz-buzz, I sighed, nodding.

"Yeah, yeah…actually, she just got impatient and just left on her own."

I shrugged at the questioning buzz.

"I dunno'. You said she was a bit of a flake, but she just went valley girl on me. I think Spectra's pulling a Doctor Phil over in the Ghost Zone."

Buzzing laughter. I glared at the speaker.

"What's so funny? I'm serious."

I shook my head to myself, looking around at the trashed park district.

"I'll call you back, some one just threw an SUV at me."

I snapped the phone shut as I phased into invisibility, letting an airborne sport utility vehicle pass through me before its trajectory sent it rolling into a cluster of parking signs. As I re-appeared I frantically scanned the landscape for who ever threw it. Nothing but an empty park. This is the fifth public park I've seen trashed, why is it always a friendly neighborhood park? Do giant monsters like to play on the monkey bars after devouring the children playing on it?

I floated down to the grass, arms spread at my sides as I saw a small tree uproot itself, soil cascading off its clumped roots, and proceed to tomahawk itself at me. As it spun toward like a lopsided frisbee me I instantly reared back and fired a flurry of neon green flares out in the general direction of the tree as it hurtled toward me at the speed of a rather overstressed cheetah.

By the time the oversized throwing stick reached me, there was nothing left but a small cloud of glowing green cinders which speckled my jacket and stung my eyes as I stared off at the stray blasts that had missed the tree. They noiselessly flew on, staying parallel to the ground until I suddenly clenched my hand into a loose fist, sending the green orbs flaring into oblivion as if I'd pulled the extension cord that kept them lit. Last thing I need is to start a brush fire.

I kept my eyes open, not taking them off the line of young trees that had somehow been flattened somewhere between the time the tree was thrown and right now. I narrowed my eyes at the trodden line of sticks and leaves, noting the way the slight wind was causing the leaves to slide on the dry grass. I noted the fact that the wind would be at my back, but my usually restless hair was flat against my head like a scared dog. Where was the wind?

Without a second thought I cocked two fingers as if pointing out a good coffee place, pointing them over my shoulder as casually as giving directions. I then fired a purposely overpowered shot of ecto-energy right over my shoulder without even bothering to turn and aim.

My instinct paid off, judging by a beastly roar of pain followed by two rolling thuds. My stained orange face stayed blank, the only sign of celebration being a subtle blow to my gun barrel/fingertip before looking over my cinder-specked shoulder to admire my handiwork.

Laid out on the ground directly behind me, barely a few yards apart, lay two horrifying creatures that humanity fears like the plague. A eight foot tall, seven foot wide troll-looking creature with green armor plates covering its rotund frame and three horns protruding from above red eyes, which were currently shut in pain as it slowly recovered from the blast. And next to it, possibly even more terrifying, a pale and overweight teenager with a severe acne/body grease problem bulging out from inside a medium-sized hard rock tee shirt with the sleeves torn off. Judging by the glasses strewn next to where his head was slumped down on the grass, he'd probably, just probably, wished he was invisible invisible with a quarter left over from buying a Big Gulp.

They have _got_ to stop building these fountains. People are just asking to have the area destroyed by collateral damage by superheroes. Or a bunch of idiots are going to get drunk and start dancing in it after watching a 'Friends' marathon, either way it's a very sad sight.

By the time the green-scaled beast of emotional burden came to, I was kneeling next to his host's groggy pouchy body, checking the pulse on the side of his neck to make sure he wasn't in shock. My little first aid demonstration was cut short by two saucer-sized feet stamping down behind where I crouched, followed by a pig-like growling noise as it recognized me. I took my hand off the kid's neck, wiping off his skin grease on his skull-themed tee shirt before standing up and turning to the kind fellow, flashing him a small smirk and extending a hand to him, politely stating.

"Hi there. My name is Phantom. You interrupted my phone call. Prepare to die. Again. Or for the first time, depends."

He didn't shake my hand. Actually, he opened his subwoofer-shaped mouth into an ear-shattering roar and sent one of his air conditioner-sized and similarly shaped fists hurtling at my innocently smirking face. At the speed of a parked car, giving me plenty of time to bend down to practically re-tie my shoes as his punch carried through as if he'd hit me. As he continued screaming, not knowing he'd missed, I took out a small pad of paper and a stubby pencil out of my jacket and shook my head to myself as I slashed a line through the phrase 'Princess Bride Jokes'.

When he finally pulled back his fist, looking at with a tilted head in a puzzled manner as if expecting to see me splattered on the front like a fly. He eventually turned his pure-red eyes toward me, right on time to get a great view of the logo-sole of my shoe rushing toward his flattened nose. I had my body chambered behind the rather simple jump kick, expecting the force to send him back. Actually it was more like kicking a brick wall. My eyes shot wide as I had to use my flight ability to keep from bouncing off his practically untouched head.

The most vulnerable moment in fighting is right after your attack is blocked. To prove it, with unusual speed the grunt got a single huge fist around my ankles, yanking my upside-down and grabbing my neck with his free hand. He grunted, his arms flexing as he prepared to snap me like a cardboard tube. In a last ditch effort, I yelled one last curse and sent my unbound fist straight into his stump of a neck. I braced the rest of my body for my spine to snap, only to be let down as his grip loosened and his meaty fists loosened. Without stopping to see what happened I broke out from his fading grip and cleanly flipped away from him to square off again, right shoulder back and heels pressed off the ground.

…only to watch my foe collapse to the ground with an extremely unpleasant gurgling noise. He fell flat with his limbs loose, staying still for a few seconds before his outline became blurry as he melted out of recognition onto the darker green grass. I stayed in my stance, not believing it as he finally sizzled down and didn't get up. I stared down at the yellow-green puddle before slowly and carefully straightening myself out of the stance, taking deep breathes to ease the pain in my probably bruised neck. I reached up to rub my sore jugular, mumbling under my breath.

"…+5 Phantom Fist…Strong against Troll Windpipes…Weak against Potato Chip Grease."

With that one last weak attempt at a heroic joke I let my shoulders fall out of exhaustion as I turned to walk off, my jacket shrinking down to my sweat-smelling gi once again and my now bare feet brushing the grass. I heard the now abandoned teenager groan from where he lay, finally coming to. I just started jogging with shallow breaths to get back to the school and change before the reporters and the local police got the all clear to trash the place all over again.

Forty Minutes Later

My eyes snapped open. I'd zoned out again again.

"_Huh?"_

My sun-blinded eyes eventually rested on the rather unusual but strangely normal sight. Kirby, still in that tacky sparring outfit with the addition of a pair of black shoes and a pair of silver sunglasses tilted down to her nose as her sharp emerald eyes further embodied my embarrassment. I quickly looked down, seeing the bottle of frosted water she was holding out to where I leaned against the rear wheel of the bike as the slow fuel line filled the tank. She'd walked in the convenience store to pay for the gas and pick up a few snacks. I'd come close to falling over while I watched the bike, I gratefully took the water and snapped the cap in one motion.

"Thanks…"

She nodded, her ponytail loudly bouncing against her purple vest as she seemed to not notice her ridiculous apparel that probably made the clerk wonder if he'd been shot and was in gamer-nerd heaven. She watched me quickly drain the bottle with a whistle, asking as she took the fuel gun out of the hidden slot under the red-chrome wheel guard.

"You don't look that good. You sleep okay last night?"

The free-throw shot I made with the empty water bottle at the trash bin fell short, clattering along the oil-stained concrete as I gave my cousin an envelope-opening look with tight brows. She slowly smiled, showing off teeth that nearly matched her chrome sunglasses in clarity as she faked a giggle and looked away, knowing not to push that joke. I did the same, eying my overfilled duffel bag strapped behind the back-pad of the bike. She'd filled it with whatever it was she 'stole' from the back room of the dojo. As I thought of her hanging up more Japanese knickknacks my thoughts wandered to her mother.

"Hey, did you ever…"

She snapped both pairs of fingers before I could finish, swooping down to my currently lent sport bag and tearing open the zipper on the side pocket. She tossed me a familiar yet completely foreign object, I caught the chain with one hand and the coin-pendent with the other. She answered.

"Yeah, I ran it by the studio before I went to Maria's."

I nodded, looking at both sides of the coin. One side, two Chinese symbols side by side. Or top and bottom, I'm not really sure. The other side, a rather plain logo of an Oriental Dragon wrapped around what I guessed was a tiger. Does China have tigers? I think it's a tiger.

"She says she knows a stand that sells those, they're all the same except for the lettering on the one side."

I snorted, slipping the coin into my jeans pocket. I'd reached the locker room before the wave of on-scene reporters spotted a guy in a cheap ninja outfit running around a disaster scene.

"Great. It's like those bead bracelets with names on them, tourists must love it."

She laughed, flipping a leg over the bike and leaning it off the stand.

"Yeah. Those two things together mean 'Crisis'."

…Crisis? Well, that's suitable. Somehow. I hopped on the seat behind her as she turned the key.

"Together?"

She shrugged as I loosely put a hand on each of her vest-covered shoulders as she pulled out of the gas station. She yelled over the initial transmission growl.

"One means 'Danger' and the other one is 'Opportunity'."

…Crisis…now _that's_ fitting. I'm not going to spend my sleepless nights asking why that girl just threw it at me and ran, the thing's probably cursed. Why would she give this thing to some white…orange guy with superpowers and dated fashion sense? What, did she think I was a hero?

An Hour Later

"…but…his face!"

Kerri's whimper was cut down by her own vocal cords. Sherri instantly slashed her pale throat with two fingers, almost clapping a hand over her twin's mouth as she leaned up to look over the edge of the barn loft's worn floorboards, making sure for the fifth time in ten minutes that no one could hear them. The twins, both dressed in baggy jogging suits in their respective colors, were crouched down behind Kirby's guitar collection and speaking in hushed tones. At least they had been, until Kerri let out that outburst.

After Sherri made another look over the loft edge, her shaky breathing making her fear obvious despite her being the calmer twin. They'd told our parents they were going for a walk, but instead snuck out to the empty barn and after a few checks for hidden microphones that weren't there, they talked.

And all the while, I was comfortably sitting on a low beam right over their heads, letting my invisible feet to and fro to bide my time as I took in every detail.

Finally, Sherri felt safe enough to continue, crouching next to the wide-eyed Kerri and corrected her in a whisper that carried.

"No, he didn't!"

Her nearly trembling double shot back, not even caring to whisper.

"_He left! I saw him packing!"_

This time, a hand clapped onto her mouth. Sherri forgot the stealth tactic and nearly yelled.

"KERRI! Listen to me!"

She whimpered, but eventually calmed down and looked up at her green-clad twin with demanding eyes. She wanted to know. Sherri took a few deep breaths before starting.

"…that ghost…the one from yesterday, did something to Dad…"

Kerri's black eyebrows jumped up behind her dyed brunette bangs. Sherri practically read her mind, shaking her head.

"No, he didn't hurt him. I mean…inside. That's why he packed up and took off, he needed to calm down."

Kerri, her mouth still covered, looked slightly less confused. Then again, she never looked like she was in the loop to begin with.

"They're not getting a divorce. Dad just needs to get himself together."

Sherri saw that her twin was no longer struggling to move her lips, so she dropped her hand and wiped it off on her sweatpants as Kerri asked, no longer frantic.

"That ghost…did you _see_ him?"

Sherri eased back, no longer leaning in to speak as she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, Sis', I saw him. We all did."

Kerri glanced down at her shoes, thinking for a second before asking, this time in a whisper again.

"Was it just me? Or did…"

Sherri's eyes narrowed. For a second there, I could see how we could be related.

"…not, who you think."

Kerri tipped her head like a puzzled raccoon. Sherri rubbed her temples and explained, slowly and carefully for her lesser twin.

"I know, I know. He looked like Alan. That's what Mom brought up on the ride back."

She stood up, keeping her eyes closed as she continued rubbing her migraines. Kerri watched silently like a cheerleader at a Stanford all-nighter. Actually, Kerri _was_ assistant captain of the squad…

"I heard Dad talking to Mom when he packed. He kept talking about our grandfather."

Kerri jumped up, beaming as she finally got it.

"OH! That's who he looked like! And Alan just…"

"Kerri, shut up."

She sat right back down. Sherri gave up easing her headache and finished.

"He said he was driving out to Amity Park. He was a wreck. If he comes back and he isn't any better, I think we may take a break from ghosts."

If I hadn't been forcing myself not to even breathe too loudly, I would have dropped down between them and agreed with them. But I stayed up in the rafters, just observing. The green clothed sister knelt down to finish, holding Kerri's chin so her eyes wouldn't wander.

"Just don't tell mom I told you this."

Before the initial 'Why?' she added on.

"She doesn't want us to see the other side there is to this family. The bad side."

As Kerri nodded in false understanding I silently phased right out of the barn in one looping maneuver around the loft and through the wall. Waiting outside for me, Kirby was wiping the bike down with a damp cloth. She leaned over to soak it in a soap bucket, and noticed I was suddenly standing next to her. She went right back to wiping the dirt off the crimson chrome surrounding the frame.

"What'd they say?"

I shrugged, leaning against the flaking paint of the wall.

"Nothing worth talking about."

She nodded, nearly slipping her headphones back on before stopping and tilting her sunglasses down at me.

"What's with the ladder?"

Leaning against the wall next to me was the ladder that led up to the loft. I'd taken it out with me when I made my exit. I just shrugged, staring off at the corn fields as she asked.

"…how are they doing to get down?"

I didn't answer. Maybe a few hours trapped in Kirby's little realm of guitars and crumpled sheet music will get them to lighten up a bit. But my mind wasn't on the brotherly prank. It off with my father. Back in Amity Park. Where it all started. And then started all over again. With me along for the ride.

Author's Notes

Not much to say. I apologize for focusing on Alan's other family halve, and its rather too realistic curse. It actually ties in with the plot, eventually. This time I decided to give you guys a window into the other half of Alan's fighting abilities and background. You notice I never go in detail on how his aunt, a rather veiled character, runs the school or even what style martial art they use. That, is for another chapter. Next time, a little much-needed focus on his boxng days and Grace's next appearance. And I promise, ghosts. Lots and lots of ghosts. Sorry for the long chapter, felt I owe it to you guys.


	24. Chapter 24

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

Pre-Note/Much-Needed Apology: I can't say I'm sorry enough for the nearly two-week wait. It's my fault, not my schedule or a server error. But one thing I have to admit to you guys. There's been a family emergency. I'll give you some filtered details later, but I've spent the last three nights watching a front door with a nightstick in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Nobody died, I'll tell you that much. But hey, I wrote some of this chapter long-hand on a pamphlet from a police department in the worst part of Chicago. I don't mean Katrina, either. My prayers go out to the people down there, and hopefully both these crisises end eventually.

Musicians, despite their dictionary blurb, aren't people who play music. They're giant dominoes waiting to fall. The minute you pick up a album, you wonder if the artist has long since gone under. Or if he's dead. In that case you would borrow it from a friend to avoid the price jump, the only tribute to the singer's untimely passing. Even worse is when people watch the endless wave of talk shows to keep up with a failing artist in progress. Maybe she'll snap on camera. Or he'll say something obscure about his love life.

This is one of the reasons I don't own a single CD.

The other reason was currently up front and center on my bedroom flat-screen. Her trademark green eyes were shaming the dark red mall-skimming outfit she wore, and even the equally dark and red couch she was stretched out on with her head on one arm-rest and her feet sticking a good foot off the other one, swinging a sandal from a toe as the off-camera host of the month asked, inviting a smile from where she reclined with her arms folded under her head.

"Have you ever considered trade-marking the K?"

The audience, still in tears from her entrance, held back laughter until Kirby just shrugged her relaxed shoulders and stated in her light Spanish brogue.

"It's not a stage name. My mom just can't spell."

And the uproar. She just flashed an ivory show of a smile, loving it but not milking the attention she already had in the palm of her hand.

Kirby on a talk show. So many monkeys and so many typewriters, but all it takes is one combination like this to make me drop the Sherlock Holmes book for an hour to watch it back home. It's one of those live, daily shows who get their ratings from women (…and men, equal rights) who sit around with their diet books and cat figurines all day while pretending to be teenagers just in case it would shrink their waistlines somehow. Or from the actual target audience, teenage girls on summer break.

I'm not sure how the viewers liked it, but the show's live audience had woken right up from a crime-novel-induced trance when a Cuban girl jogged out from backstage before the cue music could start, plopping herself down full-length on the guest couch like she owned the place. Even more unusual was the fact this couch was not full size, designed for being sat on by wider celebrities. And Kirby…is a full-sized girl. Her six foot frame was hanging off the thing while she cracked a joke about her outfit blending in with it.

It went straight uphill from there. Every routine, topical question the little blonde host pulled out of her card-box was turned into a comedy routine via Kirb's personality. Her agent told her to walk out, plug her second album, and get out of there before the stinger questions came out. A few minutes after she was asked about her name, some one in the audience stuttered a whisper into an outstretched microphone.

"H...W…Who do you-what do you like in a guy?"

As Kirby leaned forward off the couch and politely waited for the girl to finish. When she did, she eased back on the small couch with a coy smile before glancing over at the host with a look that if any less refined and good-hearted would that of a smartass. The instant she opened her smirking mouth, I buried my eyes in one hand and braced myself against my desk chair for it.

"…that, depends on what he likes in me. If he can handle weird little me, with all my twists and turns, I'll like 'im. I'm weird. If any guy can learn to like that, I'll learn to like him."

As a few women cheered, I pried two fingers apart to look at the screen with one eye. She was warmly looking over at the rather surprised-looking host, not joking about her statement. My hand went limp as she finished, snapping a thumb towards her relaxed figure that nearly blended in with the couch.

"But if he's after my _other _twists and turns…take a picture, it won't throw a drink in your face."

…that…was…surprisingly well said and rather inspirational. And where the heck is that five second censor guy? Lunch break? I crossed my arms over my torn-sleeved tee shirt, nodding slightly to the roar of the audience. I figured it was safe to watch the tape later, digging around under my pillow for the remote as Kirby's digitalized voice remarked.

"And if he has a nice car…_I'm _driving."

I slipped the silver remote out from under a pillow slip, aiming it at Kirby's winking face and sighing as my thumb felt around for the power button. As he picture snapped to black instantly, I pondered what led up to this. Watching an upcoming soprano guitarist on a talk show and wondering if she's wearing any of my clothing. I slumped back onto my bed, my black bangs sliding off my forehead as my half-open eyes looked up at the fight posters plastering my ceiling.

As my lips silently mouthed the under-card of a middleweight title match fifty years ago, my moment of peace ended with a disembodied voice broke through my cracked open doorway.

"ALAN! Turn on the TV, there's this awesome fire downtown!"

As I heard Kerri's rapid, uneven footsteps trotting up the steps I simply snapped my fingers. By the time she pushed open my doorway jabbering about how high the flames were, there was nothing left of me but a lean depression in my dark bedspread and the violent twinkling of the wind chimes outside my window. Knowing her, she'd just shrug and walk off to tell some one else.

Why would her space-case brother care about some fire, anyway?

One Hour Later

"Who…_are you?"_

The obvious, believable question hit me as if the woman had asked me what my view on abortion was. Several decades after they stopped arguing about it.

Actually, the long-lost debate of choice versus life wouldn't be that out of place. The one-line conversation was taking place on the twenty-story rooftop of a building that graced the currently smoky skyline of the city I like to call a home away from home. Trembling before me, clad in a smoke stained pants-suit and a disheveled salon haircut, stood a middle aged woman with a pen behind her ear.

The pen. She was covered in dark ash and darker tears, bleeding from a cut on her shoulder, cowering against an air conditioning system, and I just stood there with my arms crossed and my head tilted at that plastic pen behind her pierced ear.

I imagine she didn't see me as casually. I was standing near the edge of the sheer drop off the small skyscraper, and dressed formally in a spotless black jacket that didn't even hint at the layers of burning walls and smoke I'd flown clear through to find this woman gasping for air at an air vent in a flame-blocked room on the thirtieth floor of that building on the news. Actually, from the woman's point of view you could probably see the shape of the smoke-spewing office building right over my leather-packed shoulder.

A few seconds after she asked her question, I pried my eyes off the untouched pen and glanced into her light-brown eyes, watching her pupils dilate with a slight frown as she cowered back into the air system. I quickly asked, thankfully forgetting my false rasp in the rush.

"Was there anyone else?"

She instantly stopped shaking, probably recovering from being ripped out of the solid dimension and finding herself on this rooftop with a slight case of whiplash. She stared at me for a second, her fear quickly shifting to confusion as my green gaze dimmed in response, letting her see I was human despite the worries pounding through my temples and the sounds of sirens behind me. She stuttered, a light accent making itself obvious in her well-trained but frightened voice.

"N…No! The stairways were filled with smoke! Everyone else went in the elevator, I…stayed behind…to get…"

Her eyes glazed over slightly, staring beyond the unexplained figure before her. The instant she'd said she was alone, my spine has loosened against its bindings and I sighed through my nostrils. As she trailed off, I glanced down and noticed her hands were clutched to her buttoned chest. My brow jumped as I instantly assumed she was bleeding internally or having a heart attack. And my spine fell loose once more as I saw a small, silver box buried under her hands and pressed to her heart. The flap on the back gave it away. A picture frame.

Everyone else on her floor had managed to get a working elevator and took it down past the middle floors where the fire had started while she stayed to get the picture off her desk.

…well, they tried. The occupants of the elevator were currently standing around in a daze outside the police barrier, EMCs patting them own for broken bones as they just nod blankly and whisper prayers to themselves. Flames melted the elevator's cable system. The thing fell like a stone down a double shaft. But the firemen found it nestled against the bottom of the basement level, not even a scratch on it. Like it'd just been set down.

Want the weird part? It wasn't me. I was looking for air pockets that might have sheltered workers that didn't get out before the flames spread. I flew them out three at a time, just dropped them off in front of the secure zone the fire-boys had secured in the lower level. When they found the apparently magic elevator, I was rushing out the last of the thankfully living bodies on twenty three, which had just collapsed in on itself judging by the faint cracks the wind carried over to that secluded roof along with the fading smoke.

Upon hearing that this was indeed the last one, and seeing she was healthy I raised a hand to her blank line of sight to signal that was all I needed. She didn't move. She just kept staring, her breathing slowing slightly as her eyes lost focus. Without a word I rushed up to her, gently grabbing her slightly bony shoulders and easing her down into a kneeling position against the AC unit, whispering in a way that I just pray was soothing enough.

"Ma'am. You're going into shock. I'm going to get you to a hospital."

Her lips trembled as if to speak, cracking the dried lipstick that the smoke had steamed into a crust. I raised another silencing hand, reaching over with the other and gently easing the coaster-sized frame away from her jacket, peering down over the thick frame to see it enclosed a simple photograph instead of a vid-screen like most techie's desks. Just a picture.

My frown loosened as I looked down at a color print of a young bride and groom in full wedding attire. Stepping out of a church, both smiling widely but their eyes glowing at each other instead of the camera. A quick glance up at the glassy-eyed woman confirmed she was in fact the bride in the picture. Up close and under the dark smoke residue, she looked much younger. Barely any older than in the picture. I then caught myself. I shook my head slightly and pressed the frame back into her shaking palms, patting it into place before getting a good grip on her now slumped shoulders.

With a scowl of concentration, both myself the shell-shocked office worker faded out of sight. I then draped her carefully over my shoulder before lifting off the roof and gently swooping off the edge of the building into a slow dive toward the police barricade that had emptied the block surrounding the crisis area.

Another weightless swoop and I was skimming over the sea of heads all turned up at the smoke-filled sky. Some had cameras glued to their noses and others pale with fright. Tourists, and the relatives of the people inside. I kept my eyes on the cluster of ambulances planted around the ring of fire vehicles and police tape that held back the sea of heads as if the yellow vinyl were made of fire. I could have zipped right off that roof to the medical area in a few seconds, hadn't I been carrying a weightless but unstable human body on my back.

A minute of invisibility later, and I was inside the back of an empty ambulance that had its doors closed. I eased my burden gently onto the padded cot, laying her flat with her legs elevated before phasing my hands through her to save the time of sliding my hands out from under her weight. The second the contact stopped, she reappeared in living color in the same pose I'd set her in. I glanced at the closed doors and curtained windows before letting myself go solid, watching my shadow appear over her still form. I reached over her staring face and slowly closed her eyes with two fingers, watching as her expression fell into that of a peaceful state.

Out of pure paranoia I kept my hand over her face to feel her breath on my palm before assuring myself she'd be okay and drawing my arm back under my should awkwardly. This was the only victim that had _seen _me. All the others just found themselves in a different room of a sudden. And they may have wondered why their hair was swept back like a wind tunnel hit them.

But this one…was huddled under a desk in a part of the building completely sealed off by the burning floors. I had to fly her out to that rooftop to ask her in private if there was anyone else up there, if I'd left her with the fireman and stayed to eavesdrop, I wouldn't know that I could call it a day and stay of a burning building like all the sane people.

…what would have happened if I'd sat this out? 'I only do ghosts! Leave it to the firemen.'

...how many of these people would have died?

My neck swung to the rear door of the ambulance as the lock clicked from the outside. I phased back into thin air as two meds swung both doors open and grabbed two plastic briefcases sitting on the floor. As they one noticed the woman on the stretcher he exclaimed, his eyes narrowed under his mesh cap.

"...there's _another_ one!"

His partner just shook his head, leaping next to the stretcher as I watched unseen. He checked her pulse and yelled a code to the other uniforms who'd wandered up, springing into a revival procedure. A few breaths into modified CPR, the woman's elbows jumped off the stretcher to clutch the tiny picture frame to her chest to make sure it was still there.

At this sign of life I gave the workers a thankful nod they'd never see and swooped right through the metal wall to see how the others were doing. But not before one more glance at the picture the woman had risked her life to save. Who knows, maybe it saved _her_.

One Hour Later

In the darkness of the moist washcloth I had draped over my eyes, I clearly heard the mirrored glass door creak open on its aging hinges. Even if my eyes had been open, I wouldn't have blinked. The intruder was probably related to me, why bother looking at them. But when a terribly French-sound squeal went off in my right ear, my eyelashes nearly flipped the blindfold right off. The front legs of the plain wooden chair snapped back onto the polished floor of the office as I turned my head a few inches to see a pair of textured brown eyes beaming at me from under a thick blanket of bright crimson and brown bangs.

From the corner of my now wide eyes I could make out the shaded wooden outlines of the back office of the dance studio Aunt Janet owned, ran, and lived over with my uncle and the spitefully immortal old hag that had kicked Kirby out of her childhood room. I'd snuck over here immediately after the reporters came in for the kill at the office fire. And I'd made good time sitting here with the air conditioning cool-drying my sweat-dripping tee shirt and my burning calves propped up on the desk that had been with the studio longer than Kirby had.

…until this French chick just walked in and tore my eardrum apart.

I reared back against the chair, shifting off the side as I stared down at the unmoving figure of a girl that made my sisters look like Kirby vertical-wise. She was…small. Maybe five feet tall in a pair of hooker-style heels. The ribbon-laced dancing shoes she wore only accentuated her stature as she crossed one over her right ankle and folded her bird-sized arms over her red leotard. As I stood up to my semi-full height, further dwarfing her, she looked up at me from under an extremely thick mop of brunette bangs that had been striped with wild red hair dye for an artistically punk look. Her slightly pale, possibly artificially tanned skin contrasted her dark features and the thin line of dark lipstick she wore. First impression? Put a lock on your cosmetics when preteens are around, or this'll happen.

Her tiny mouth curved into an equally small smile before announcing in a fully mature, and rather husky voice that belonged in the nicotine-stained throat of a female jazz singer. She looked hardly fourteen, but had the voice of a thirty year old supermodel with image problems. Complete with a dripping French accent that made it even harder to follow.

"Rook-eigh! Whirv' all the feeses goon? I valk in he-ah, and soom on points me to de' _beginners_ vroom!"

Ten seconds of staring later, I deciphered what she said and smile a bit, crossing my arms also. I asked, casually as I was among friends.

"What're you doing here? City of Paris disown you again?"

She let out a sadistic snort, rolling her layered eyes and reaching over to shove my chest and pushing her frail frame back in the process. She snapped, pretending to be offended as only a French woman could.

"Ah-_HA! _You alvay's with le' jokes. So. You steel fitting 'oonder, vat he vas, _Wiess?"_

Instantly, my smile went from authentic to just a well-made counterfeit. I kept my cheeks flexed as she waited for an answer, giving me some time to translate. She knew I was a bit sow. She _didn't_ know that her accent was a train-wreck. I opened my mouth to simply change the subject to where she was staying, the door creaked open again. Both of our heads turned, despite the nearly two floor distance between our faces.

We watched as Kirby, wearing the very same red outfit I'd noticed on that talk show just this morning, graced the doorway and immediately pounced down on the tiny girl, getting in a feminine bear hug .Then the two held each other's wrists, grinning as they chattered away in rapid French chatter. Meanwhile, I stepped towards the doorway and watched with a tilted eye-set as the two carried on a rushed conversation in a language Naeme spoke as a native and Kirby spoke as a…Kirby.

I stood there for close to twenty minutes before the chattering began to subside. I hadn't caught a single word. At one point Kirb' had pantomimed hitting a punching bag, in response the unexpected guest had done what I could honestly only describe as the hand movement used to feel a piece of beef for tenderness. Yes, I was scared. Speaking of intimidating text, Naeme is pronounced like Naomi. Except French, and the little comma that Europeans think is sexy.

When I finally crept my hand onto the bronze door handle to close it behind me, the foreign conversation cut off like I'd tripped over the plug. Without an English explanation the miniature woman took off down the hallway rattling off phrases that were either curses, or even worse curses. I held my head out the doorway, watching her run out with a flared eyebrow until a hand grabbed me by the bangs and pulled me back into the office like it was a vegetable root.

I heard the door slam closed and one of the hinges crack as I found myself pressed against the desk with two green eyes burning into me from a distance even closer than just a minute ago. I felt what felt like two claws dig into my upper arms as a Spanish hiss was spat into my chin.

"_Are you INSANE?_ I saw it from that studio, don't try to fake out of this!"

On a reflex I grabbed her waist and eased her coiled form farther away from where I was pinned, only succeeding in tightening her short-nailed grip as I stuttered.

"…s…saw what?"

By the time I noticed the lack of nails digging into me, she was pacing her mother's office with frantic strides as she covered her neck with folded hands.

"…forty stories, top fourteen blocked off, stairways burning…and people still got out. God, I knew it was either _you, _or the fire-fighters around here must know Professor Xavier…"

As I slid off the desk, ignoring the puncture marks on my biceps as I honestly asked.

"…how would a stretchy guy with gray hairs be any help? All he does it tick off Doctor Doom."

She stopped in mid-step, not looking up from the floor as she stated in strangely calm tone with a single shoulder toss.

"...well, at least you know Marvel from DC…"

With that she lunged right back into her mad pacing. She grabbed two handfuls of hair from her waist and pulled on them as she sighed through her teeth at the oak floorboards.

"...you're not hurt, right?"

I glanced down at my sweat-soaked, dehydrated, smoke smelling but otherwise untouched form before shrugging positively to keep her from making a donation to the wig-maker down the street. She took a few deep breaths before letting her hair bounce up to her shoulders from the whiplash. She closed her eyes and started speaking in slow English to keep herself focused.

"You didn't _have _to go out there."

…like I wasn't thinking that when a bottle of scotch or something hidden in some one's desk exploded right into my eyes. When I'm in mirage-mode, barely anything can touch me. No burns, no cuts. But when I'm flying through flames and scalding wood, I can feel the heat. This is why I had to crash out here instead of heading home. If I didn't cool off and get some fluid in me I'd pass out the second I phased back to human. I just hope none of the dancers in here noticed a few bottles of water vanish into thin air when they were doing stretches.

"…Kirby. I found people trapped up there."

Her green eyes dulled their sharpness as she realized I wasn't just roasting Fenton-mash mellows up there. I continued, nearly under my breath.

"Those guys…the cops, meds, firemen, they're better men than I'll ever be. But they were _human_. I wasn't being a hero. I was just trying to help."

She didn't have a comeback for that. She just stared. Good thing. That was my last card. And she's the better card player.

Her pencil-eyebrows stayed tight in the scolding position, and her still-colored lips stayed wedged shut as she waited for another chance to pounce. I returned with a sincere, honest gaze that didn't seem to even chip the armor she'd built up when it came to all this. When I fought ghosts, she found it amazing and entertaining at the same time. When I put myself at risk, like her father had all those years ago…she knows her father is the luckiest man alive, the way her survived. She also knows that I'm _not, _that lucky.

The staring contest kept on for who knows how long. I could have counted the metallic ticks of the old clock on the corner of the desk, but you know how I am with simple math. The second I saw her pupils twitch, I braced myself for the finish. Only to watch her slump back into the chair I'd spent the last hour recovering in. She let her chin thump down on her swan-shaming neck, glancing down at her red-clothed lap and simply handing me the argument. But not before muttering.

" '_Helping'_ my big ass…"

…if the context had been any of right that moment, that reference to her figure would have become a panel discussion concerning body image and the a graph I made just for the purpose of convincing her that the thing is perfectly in proportion with the rest of her.

Instead, I completely lost control of everything except for the guilt that immediately ran itself through the back of my skull. All of a sudden, my hands were clenched around the arms of her chair, and my face was an inch from hers as I heard myself growl right down at her surprisingly unaffected face.

"If you…even _think _that I wasn't taking this seriously…!"

Before I could threaten her, she clicked her tongue as if she was ordering a drink on second guess.

"_Eeaaassy, _Phantom…"

Her approach surprised me enough that I managed to control myself and pull away from her, glancing down at my hands in confusion and hardly noticing she wasn't doing nicknames. I didn't even turn to look in the mirror on the door, one look at my hands told it all. Badly tanned. Black sleeves. And the sudden adrenaline pounding between my ears. I'd shifted. Without even thinking.

She finished her sentence, not even mentioning my sudden transformation as if I'd just bent to tie a shoelace.

"…Alan, you weren't helping out there."

I kept staring at my hands, jaw slack as I tried to piece together what just happened.

"You even see the news? Not one fatality. Everyone got out in one piece. _Helping_, yeah right. You _saved_ those guys…every one."

Suddenly a hand, not a claw, touched down on my shoulder. Instantly I caught myself and with one twitch of my brow the black outfit and bizarre exterior cracked away to reveal the battered confused youth underneath. The hand stayed, she kept talking to me when I wasn't even trying to listen.

"Stop throwing back your good cards. _Hero_ isn't a bragging right. It's a title."

I didn't catch the rest. I watched my hands clench into loose fists before they disappeared and Kirby's hand fell right through my shoulder. I didn't even think of a place to go, I just threw myself through the wall and swooped out into the alley and toward the still smoky sky, nearly reaching the level of the roof tops before there was a sharp pain in my shoulder and I felt myself fall like a stone. This time, I _really_ didn't know what hit me. Whatever it was, it worked.

Later, Time Unknown

What seemed like seconds after that sharp pain, I found my vision blocked by my own eyelids. Which I suddenly lacked the strength to move. As soon as my head stopped swimming, one thought latched itself behind my forehead.

A dart. Some one hit me with a _dart_. Right behind the studio.

The next thought that came was the fact I couldn't move. At all. I could barely feel my arms stretched over my head, hanging limply while my legs stayed straight. That was all I could feel, my arms hanging. Everything else was completely numb. A pounding in my inner ear hinted that maybe I was on a slant, with my arms hanging down. Possibly hanging by my ankles. Then again, that would be the stupidest situation since…

A gravelly, slightly resonating voice cuts into my train of thought.

"That dart took me all _day_ to charge…and he's recovering after _twenty minutes! Geez! _Plas-mucas won't know what hit him."

…this just got stupider. Was that…_Skulker_?

_Beep._

"…man, thank Zod those gorillas went extinct…saved my schedule."

…yeah, that's him. Does he know I'm awake?

"Hey, you awake?"

…Skulker, are you like _reading _this? If so, would you mind helping me spell check later? Am I being too descriptive about Kirby's apparel? Am I not giving the dog enough page-time? Who am I kidding. This guy can't even read an instruction manual.

I managed to grunt. He grunted in response, ending his lonely chatter.

"…twenty one minutes…"

I heard a button being pressed, probably a timer. I would have raised an eyebrow, but they felt heavier than usual.

"First things first. I'm not here for your pelt. Just wanted to chat."

…he shot a dart in me…and hung me upside down, to talk? Nice people skills. What next, cheese-whiz and crackers laced with formaldehyde? I'd love to see this guy in a singles bar.

"…I've had my eye on you, Kid. One glance, I knew something was off. Fenton could never fill out a jacket like that."

…hey, thanks.

"That…and he's not exactly with us anymore. Or with _you. _Living, dead, pick one."

…that, was a bit blunt.I struggled to move my jaw, but it was flat against my skull from the gravity of being upside-down. Maybe it's for the best, this is worth listening to.

"Didn't take long to blame a _Fenton_. That convention just proved my guess."

I tried to pry my teeth apart with my tongue. Nothing. Man, and I wanted to ask if these darts would work on Kirby.

"…I remember Vlad joked about your mug when he first met you."

…oh…merciful mother of…

"Then that documentary he funded…right out of the water, you're a nobody. Made the fool start wondering about Danny coming back."

…Danny, _wasn't _a nobody? And what about nearly every two-sided super-hero known to man? Geez, those embalming fluid cracker sandwiches are sounding nice right now. I managed to crack one eye open, letting gravity slide it down my eye only to see a section of brick wall. He was standing behind me, judging by the source of his voice. Yet he continued his dramatic supporting villain dialogue, talking right to the back of my head.

"…I don't have long to talk. I'm just here to say _hello,_ and ask one question."

…_one_ question? _Hello?_ Dart, hanging, crackers…you'd think he'd just instant message me or something. Or carve it into the flank of a slaughtered giant monster, that's up there with the front of the fridge for me. Nonetheless, I stayed quiet and polite until his question hit me as if he'd used me as a punching bag while I was up here.

"You're going after Plasmius, right?"

I grunted impatiently. Ya' know, I hate being reminded of my life purpose every day. It's like a nagging aunt at a wedding, you're next, you're next, avenge your grandfather's death, you're getting married next.

"…let's say you pull it off. What then?"

…why am I so much funnier when my eyes are closed? Maybe the seclusion isolates my sarcasm…wait, what?

"…you somehow defeat the guy who has the entire ghost zone on a leash. What then?"

I opened my mouth a little and grunted, trying to say I didn't understand. He hesitated before explaining in his booming casual tone.

"…you're after the _power_. The money. The _empire…_all yours for the taking. Vlad can't even take over the _Packers_! _You! _You could have it _ALL!_"

I could hear metal clinking. He was gesturing with his hands wildly. I could ear his elbow plates clanging right behind me, he had his back to me. He turned his back on me…

"…Kid, I'll help you take 'em down. We could rule this dump. C'mon…how's that sound?"

I didn't even try to grunt. To protest, to just slip out a 'No' through the fading drug coursing through my system. I just opened my eyes, staring out at the bricks and feeling my corneas flare to life.

Never. Turn your back on a Fenton.

The tight alley I'd woken up in suddenly echoed with a slightly metallic thud, followed by a metric ton of steel hitting a brick foundation at a speed a drunk driver would consider a good clip. My half-open eyes were now alert, and my possibly glowing orbs were staring across the now right side up alley. They rested on a rug-sized, jagged concave in the fading brown bricks that was dropping a steady waterfall of stone chips and mortar dust down to the asphalt under it.

My eyes followed the falling chips down to what they were clinking off of and landing in a semi-circle around my eyes final resting place. What looked like a sci-fi inspired suit of armor, crumpled in half with its back wedged into the bottom of the crumpled wall. If it hadn't been for the flaming green Mohawk and two glowing green slits peeking out from the mess, it could have been mistaken for scrap metal.

I stood on both feet in the middle of the maze-centered alley, two bands of black rope still hanging off my ankles while a single strand hung from a pipe over our heads, swinging in the urban breeze. There wasn't a trace of the drugs or even the disorientating conversation as I inched my right side back behind my left, eyes locked on the crumpled hunter.

I had made the first move. That's usually a fatal mistake.

I held my stance, waiting for his counterattack. And for him to even try getting up. His plate-sized hands stayed limp to his sides, his head down on his chest. If I were any dumber I would have stepped closer to check him out. Instead, I called out with an understandably dry mouth.

"…hey, Robo-Possum! We gonna' finish this or are you waiting for your last will and testament to load to a floppy first?"

I expected him to shoot up on jet-boosters and start firing missiles. Or pull out a Rambo-knife and start smearing dirt on his face, at least. Instead, he slowly raised his polished head up and said with blank green eyes, his growling tone strangely flat.

"Good answer."

Quickly I lowered my stance, waiting for it. He stayed put against the wall, keeping his head up but not even reaching for a button on his wrist. He just sat there, watching me watch him. Not dropping my hands, I rasped back.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

My knees bent into a tall crouch as he quickly pushed himself up to his full height, reaching up to crack his titanium neck before squaring his shoulders and answering, booming down to me once again.

"…if you'd said yes, I would have killed you just now."

…said yes to what? I tightened my brow, not leaving my seasoned free-for-all stance that had gotten me through six Gloves divisions. He just crossed his arms over his Sedan-like chest, flashing me a scowl.

"I came down here for a little insurance. I find out you're a bigger snot than Vlad, I snuff ya' and save myself from an even _worse_ boss after _a_ meets _b_."

I managed to make a crack, not even letting my arms relax from their angled shield.

"Sounds like a good plan. And it turns out I could care less about world domination, what now?"

He shrugged, sending his shoulders a good foot higher before letting them clang back onto their supports. I can't tell if he was looking at me, or if his eyes were just in my direction. Nice trick, like drawing pupils on your eyelids. I was still waiting for the fight to start.

"…well, it saves me a trip to the lime mines. Now, about that pathetic excuse for a Wiscon…"

Right as I started to relax and actually give him the time of day, there was a sharp ringing. Quickly, I felt the inside pocket of my jacket for my flip phone but before I could the not-so-bony skeleton extended a bottle-sized thumb and bagel-sized pinkie finger. He then pressed the double-pointed fist to the side of his head, speaking into his pinkie as if it were a phone. I froze with my hand in my jacket, wondering how hard he'd hit that wall. He glared at his hand/phone grudgingly.

"Whaddaya' want?"

In the silent, secluded alley I could hear a buzzing banter emitting from his thumb, even standing a good few yards away. We must have the same service, the reception is complete crap. His eyes narrowed into two radioactive strips of gum. I saw his welded teeth grinding.

"Yeah. He showed up."

…normally, I would have taken right off to avoid an ambush. Except…if you were calling an ambush, would you be gritting your teeth and not even looking at the guy who'd just dinged up your exoskeleton/prosthetic ego? I stayed right where I was, feeling my bangs twitch as another breeze whistled by. Soon enough the violent chirping receded, and Skulker answered.

"Uh huh. Yeah. By the ankles."

Chirp-chirp.

"…actually, he knocked me into a system shut-down and took off."

I nodded a few times to myself, not disagreeing with his lie. The chirping became a squealing rant, causing the cyborg to hold his hand-phone a good foot away from his domed head to keep from overloading the microphones he had for ears. I took notice of the way he glared at the squeaking speaker. Very similar to my own facial features when Wasp calls with a list of bridesmaid skirt lengths. Except without the amazing self-control. Even totally he leaned toward his hand and snapped.

"I said I'd _try_. _You_ want him dead, _you_ do it. Worked last time. Oh wait…_He's still alive!"_

With that he slammed his finger and thumb into his chromed fist, cutting off the call apparently. With a slow shake of his head his digital eyes drifted back to where I stood. He stated in what was close to not being a growl.

"..._that_, is why I didn't crush you like a recyclable. Because he told me to."

His steeled face stayed still as he said this. Then again, he's never been that expressive. He suddenly turned, sending me back into my stance only to see he was turning towards the only entrance of the deep-end alley. With his head swiveled perfectly over his shoulder, he gave me one last glare before turning away to look down the ceiling-less tunnel the alley formed. I raised a finger and opened my mouth to say something that would probably get my head re-sized. Thankfully he cut me off again, still looking away.

"…speaking of nothing, what happened with that fire?"

…fire? Oh, _that_ fire.

I crossed my arms, eyes locked on his uncaring profile. I kept my joints loose, still expecting a sneak attack after all we've been through together.

"Wiring defect. And some bad smoke detectors. Probably started in a circuit room, by the time they knew what was going on half a floor was up."

He didn't nod. He just didn't demand any more information. He probably showed up before I did, waiting for me. My suspicion was confirmed with one last question.

"…what's it like being a hero, Kid?"

I didn't answer. I just casually snapped in response.

"You tell me. Why'd you catch that elevator…"

…instead of a question mark, my question ended with a sharp gag as I was suddenly snatched off the ground by my neck. My blurred vision went bright green as he tore into my ears from inches away.

"…you tell _anyone, _that it was me…and your jacket is going to be my new parlor rug."

I choked assuring, struggling to breathe as he dropped me into a heap at his feet. By the time I caught my breath and looked up from the greasy concrete, I was alone. He was quiet when he wanted to be. After a few minutes of brushing myself off and rubbing my bruising neck, I muttered a prayer under my breath and shot off skyward. But not before smirking to myself at one piece of thought.

Skulker. A bloodthirsty hunter. Caught a falling elevator full of people.

Why? I can't say for sure. But everyone was human for a while. Some longer than others. Was Skulker always such a hardass?

That Night

I swung my right foot into the base of the door, not even putting any force behind it. With a rusty thud the front door of the ultra-secure Fenton Farmhouse popped open like a soda tab. I shuffled through the dark doorway, stretching the same leg over and swinging the door back into the frame as the brightly-lit living room came into focus after hours of flying in near-black conditions. My slightly bloodshot eyes scanned the wide-spaced furniture, passing over the couch and loveseat before glancing at each guest chair. All the lamps on, kitchen's lit up like a model home, not a single family member in sight.

True, it was around midnight, but usually both my sisters or my father by himself have the couch staked up every night with the fridge door wide open a few yards away. If one of the twins manages to get in earlier enough and get dibs, cookie cutter reality shows would scar themselves onto my sisters' eyes until close to the morning hours to catch reruns. But usually my father, who still hadn't gotten back from his impulsive trip, got the couch every night and the syndicated ball games sent us all to our rooms and our respective televisions.

Then again, that talk show this morning was the first hour of the tube I've caught in two weeks. Every time I come down here my sisters are just killing their time sprawled out in front of the thing. Ever since they got out of high school a year early, it's all they've done besides the ghost business and promotional bits. And they wonder why they need those insane diet plans to keep in model condition, they're lazier than the guy who invented penicillin.

What? I'm serious. He was too lazy to throw out moldy bread.

As I dragged myself over to the empty couch, letting my weight pull me down onto it with a groan as my forehead tapped down onto the chilled leather. By now my plain green shirt was nearly tye-dye with the way my layers of sweat throughout the day had bleached the fabric. Including the fresh coating from just under an hour ago.

After that thing in the alley with the one guy, I took refuge in the back room of Maria's studio on a pile of discarded floor padding. Thankfully the place was empty, it was a working day but for some reason I didn't care to look into no one had even come in unlock the doors that morning. I forgot to put my watch on this morning, I left right around when I could breathe without moving my throat with my hands.

As I looked over the deserted living room, the only evidence of the day's many events was a line of three faint bruises along the front of my neck.

Of course, I can't have a day _that_ easy. As I was walking to the train station I ran into one of my lesser-known aunts, the bartender who always pronounced my name '_Alonso'. _As I slid the remote off the end-table between my dying trainers, I sighed in a voice that parodied my aunt's sharp chirp of a voice.

"_Alonso!_ ¿_Cómo usted tienen gusto de ayudar a su tía preferida?"_

As I roll onto my back, dropping my threadbare shoes on the table and mimicking my own meek tone.

"Um…I'm kinda preoccupied…"

"_¡Absurdo! Adelantado, le demostraré cómo encender bebidas."_

I winced, turning on the TV. It was going to be a long night. Weekday evenings weren't exactly primetime for 24/7 insomniacs like me.

"_Si, Senora…"_

I watched the evening news replay on one of the later channels, cursing to myself as I tried to slide a shoe off against my other shoe.

"A high-rise fire. Some psycho just stopping by to say hi and ask what I was doing next Saturday. Then my aunt needs me to fill in for some slacker at a party. I nearly dehydrate twice, and I end up serving flaming drinks to attractive rich girls all night."

As I get the shoe off, I begin to wedge the other against the table edge.

"…that's gotta' be illegal. Nineteen year old working a bar."

As the last shoe fell to the rug, I dug through my jeans pocket and fished out what looked to be a paper napkin with one side covered in different shades of ink. On closer inspection, it was a tiny collage of phone numbers. I flipped it over, same on the other side. Then flicked the corner, unfolding all four sections of the now large but very thin cloth. Both sides of the high-school desk-sized napkin was covered in female names and phone numbers. A tiny Vietnam Memorial of girl's numbers. As I dropped the metaphorical Shroud of Turin beside me, I patted my right bicep through my stretched tee shirt and nodded to myself.

"You did good, Boys. Now, let's hope your slightly smaller but equally important team-mates do just as well."

I lay there for a while, contemplating my late but successful venture into dating before stating to the empty room, just as casually as the rest of my monologue.

"…what in hell's name are you doing under there, Kirby?"

I kept my half-open eyes on the TV as a few seconds passed. A timid voice muttered from underneath the very cushions I was sitting on, inside the mechanisms of the couch.

"Um…well, I got back here at like six…"

I started flipping channels, not showing a sign that I cared about her being trapped under there.

"Go on…"

She sighed.

"…I started dancing around, I mean, I was on TV!"

…Kirby dancing around the house when no one was home…yeah, that checks out. I skipped back to footage of a car crash in the middle of a rodeo. She continued.

"Like halfway through the finale, your folks barged in. Your dad came back early."

"Uh huh."

"…and…eh…I dove under the footrest so they wouldn't see me, and somebody kicked it down. I don't know how long I've been down here, my watch doesn't light up."

So that's where my watch went. I _knew_ she was wearing something of mine! I used my toes to pull my socks off.

"…why…didn't you want them to see you?"

"…um…"

I sighed, raising one hand and letting it disappear to the shoulder with a green flash. I eyed it and mused.

"Why do I always have to get stuff from under the couch…"

As I raised the phantom-hand to reach down and pluck her right through the couch, she suddenly yelped.

"_¡Me no visten!'_

My arm screeched to a stop, an inch from the leather. With wide, twitching eyes I looked down at my seat and asked, stuttering.

"Um…uh…wha'?"

She faked a giggle, then let it die.

"Uh…I was the only one _here…_"

…so that's why she hid…

"Kirby. My mom said she'd stop charging you rent if you just keep your clothes on."

She scoffed from under me.

"C'mon! Like you never do that when you're home alone!"

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head at the TV.

"Not since you moved in…"

I let my arm drop back to my side, continuing my channel surfing as she asked.

"…just open the footrest, will you?"

I shrugged.

"After I head upstairs, sure."

What? You _want_ me to see that? She understood, grumbling something under there as I snapped a pair of fingers and asked off-topically.

"Hey, any mail?"

I glanced over to see the crease in the cushions next to me widen slightly before a thick brown envelope slid up out of it like a stick of gum. I thanked the mail-giving couch and took it, frowning at the return address label on sight.

Grace Wiess. Complete with a clear Braille sticker over the typed text so she could tell it apart. The couch asked.

"…was that the blind chick? From the gym?"

I didn't answer. I quickly slashed the side of the heavy-duty with one finger and tilted it toward my tilted palm. There was a scratchy sliding, followed my by face falling into a scowl.

"…Damn it, Grace…"

With a final clink, the envelope was empty. And coiled upon my palm was a tiny silver chain with a dull finish, neatly piled into the bowl of my hand. With tightening features, I brushed my thumb through the coil and pushed it aside to reveal what it had been hiding. Looped onto the belly of the chain, with the same dull finish as thus…was a cross. A tiny, undecorated silver cross that looked even smaller and plainer in my calloused and muscle-stretched hand. A few seconds later, I saw something drop down silently beside the cross, darkening my palm when it hit.

I stared at the unexpected object for longer than I'd looked at the pendent. I expected to see my own blood dripping. Or sweat. Or whatever it was I'd wasted that day, that battle of a day. No, a coil of fear tightened itself around my heartbeat as I stared down at what had fallen besides the cross.

A tear. A single tear.

Author's Notes

I'll skim this later and polish when I have the time. It's been a long two weeks. I wish I could tell you I'm just starting school like many of the site members here, but it's more like the safety and welfare of a loved one both legally and physically. One thing I have to get out. If any of you ever end up being a private investigator and drop out of the business to pursue something cleaner-cut, do not, throw out your badge. It'll save your girlfriend the trouble of saving it for when you need it the most. Thank you, and further apologies.


	25. Chapter 25

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

(Pre-Note:...no more delays, guys. It's all over. Things have finally calmed down, and I hope I haven't lost any readers because of my absence. I can't hide behind the fact I was running around, mapping evidence and telling myself I'm _not_ falling back into my private eye days. I'm just helping a sibling. I'll sort out the finer details for you guys later, but here's how it started.

My sister's apartment was attacked and nearly vandalized. By some drug-business punks who had the wrong apartment number. The doors were locked, so her room mates and her weren't killed. But what those guys yelled through the door scared them enough that they needed to move out the next day. The problem, her neighbors threatened these girls with violence if they told the police who the guys had been looking for. So they had to move out _and_ get this information to the police under the protection of every able family member anf friend my sister has. Inlcuding, her brother. Who had an unsuccessful run at the private investigation business, and a halfway decent run as a boxer and later as a MMA competitor. I'm not bragging. I'm just saying. Nobody. messes with my sister. Period.

Oh, and this chapter contains a couple curses, and a joke involving a subject most ignorant males tend to avoid like the plague. It's not sexual. Just...taboo.)

Two Days Later

I watched with heavy eyes as the same blimp-sized woman with the football-sized dog shuffled by the fire hydrant I'd been sitting on for what had to be more than an hour. After the woman huffed by, talking to the dog under her breath as she did so I made another glance down both sides of the block. Nothing new. Three parks cars, eleven twig-like trees planted between sidewalk slabs, and a red and yellow flier flapping under some one's windshield. Except for the covered storefront I was loitering in front of, this was all brownstone buildings full of college students and the semi-retired.

And the lady with the dog. She walked by again, I mouthed to myself.

"Thirty three…"

When she reached the edge of the empty block and turned for lap thirty four, a foreign sound snapped me out of the trance this hypnotic dog-walking put me in.

A dull-sounding kickback from a motorcycle as it swerved into the block opposite the hardly phased dog owner. If you really need to be specific, from a modified touring bike that had served the local police department loyally for years until its riding officer retired prematurely and took her trusted mount home with her. Is that legal? Well, her grease-monkey husband stripped all the logos off and repainted it. And I'm starting to suspect she did something to the fuel lines.

I knew all this before I even turned to _look_ at the bike. I took my time turning my head, and by the time my guess was confirmed she was leaning onto the kickstand a few feet away from the deep-red sport bike I'd parked a few yards away from the not nearly as red fire hydrant. I didn't even loosen an eyebrow as a petite-built woman in a black windbreaker slid off the comparably huge bike and slid her silver shades down to the tip of her nose. Her nearly black eyes locked onto me for a second before she snapped her shades back up and stepped over the curb toward the door of the storefront.

"…how long you been out here?"

I just shrugged against the jacket I had slung over one shoulder. As she pulled out a key and opened the door, she explained.

"Long night. Picked my bike up from the shop, figured I may as well blow off some steam."

I just nodded silently, cracking my stiff neck as I closed the door behind me and hit a button on the side of the door frame. There was a low hum as blinds covering the glass wall of the place slowly retracted into a ceiling vent. Gradually the mid-morning sunlight washed down onto the padded floors and bare walls of the dojo as the small woman in the sunglasses shucked off her jacket to reveal the black gi she had taken to wearing all of a sudden.

I quickly wondered why she'd been wearing a rather stuffy training outfit under her street clothes. And why she was doing so when it was easily eighty degrees out, I'd had to take off my jacket to avoid ruining the leather with sweat. I cleared my hardly used throat and commented.

"…where you on the highway or something?"

She was now on the other side of the floor, unlocking the door to the storage room. She yelled over, echoing off the industrial materials this place was made of.

"No. I've just been…a bit cold lately."

I pretended to understand, throwing my jacket onto a hook on the wall as the blinds finished folding out of sight with a loud click. She disappeared into the back room, giving me time to walk over to the newly revealed window and look out at the two bikes parked outside. They were the only vehicles in sight, but they would be eye-catching even if not.

Valerie's gift. The dark red sport bike with obvious customizations and upgrades. I don't care if I only got it so I wouldn't rat Val out to the police for attempted murder, it's got a freakin' turbo strapped on somewhere. And next to it, larger in size but not nearly as streamlined or updated, was my Aunt Maria's old patrol bike. The same bike she'd taught me how to ride as a reward for getting my brown belt years and years ago. And in doing so gave my mother a few gray hairs to dye brown again.

…Gee, I wonder which side of the family I got _that _gene set from.

A few seconds of staring later and my aunt walked back out of the back room with her shoes off and her shoulder-length hair tied into a pretzel-shaming knot behind her neck. The second I noticed her dignified frown, I swung my heels around to face her, pulling out a slight bow before stepping towards the locker room to change and get the already delayed session started. My heel then froze an inch from the mat when she stated.

"Right where you are. We need to talk."

Slowly, I turned back to where she stood with her arms behind her back and her shoulders squared. Like an Amazon statue miniaturized to fit on some one's dashboard. I assumed a similar posture with my arms at my sides and my neck tilted down to meet her blank eyes. I'd been dreading this since I last set seen her three days ago. She began.

"We never finished our conversation. If I recall, you had to run out to the middle of a riot for some reason."

… Oh crap.

"…Alan. Did you honestly think I wouldn't be suspicious? Seven years of boxing and you just walk in here and ask to come back?"

I swallowed sharply. It's not that I wasn't allowed to speak. I just had nothing to say.

"…that, was the first guess. Then I just happened to notice you'd gone from a competent _karetaka_ to some one I'd expect to run me out of business if they opened their own school."

She hadn't moved an inch. Like reading off cue cards. Meanwhile, I was trying not to glance at the door. I wanted out of there. She kept on.

"The fact you're a different fighter isn't that unusual. That's another conversation. But I need to know something."

…please, please, let this be a 'Are you gay?' thing.

"...what _are_ you?"

I stayed in my student's stance. Still staring down at her with equally blank eyes. I managed to half cough a response.

"…Uh…Ya' see, a few months back…"

Her palm shot between us, I nearly bit my tongue in half.

"I get _that _part. Christ, I was a _cop. _It's a big city, eventually spandex is going to come into play."

…_what_?

Her tone became calmer, more casual as she rolled her near-black eyes and sighed.

"…Honestly. Alan, how haven't your parents figured it out? After you asked me how to make _smoke bombs_, I can't say I was surprised."

…turns out I only used those things that one time with Val. It was the end of my 'utility belt' phase. But back to this tiny woman in the black karate outfit making me her…you get it.

"And the lack of social life. And how you're suddenly have a gift with sarcastic commentary and catchphrases."

So…she thinks I'm gay? Right? She reached up to rub between her eyes as she finished.

"…you're not the first, Alan. Superhero, vigilante, whatever you want to call it, you _are_ one."

I let my jaw unhinge as she relaxed her statuesque posture and started looking up and off to the side as she rattled off everything she had on me. Like a…liberated Cuban woman? Wait, that's not a simile, that's an adjective. When her eyes rolled back up at me, she asked again.

"I don't need the details, I probably won't understand. I just have to know, right now. Which side are you on?"

Almost instantly I shot back.

"…Sensai. If I weren't with the good guys, would this city still be standing?"

She didn't even blink. With the same tone that had taken me the entire conversation to work up to, she just let her lip twitch at my answer before plainly stating.

"Good. In that case, you won't kill me for this."

My eyebrows eventually collapsed into themselves, my confident smirk staying tilted only because my jaw was settled in that way. She slowly turned away from me to look out the window just as I had, sighing through clenched teeth.

"…Don't bother coming back here, Alan. You're just wasting your own time."

The last bit of formality shattered, I took a step back and tried to breath again before lunging forward and gently grabbing her shoulders, turning her to face me only to see her dark eyes now just dull with relief. I'd say regret, but I'm not a mind reader. I can't say I took after Janet. My other aunt, the one I was starting to wonder if I truly knew, managed not to let her voice sob or even just wither.

"…even if it weren't for…whatever's going on, I can't do it."

I begged, my hands slipped off her shoulders and barely sliding against the smooth fabric of her uniform.

"Please! I…what if I…?"

"No. I'm not going to train…"

And, in the first instance since I first met this woman, she couldn't find her words. She reached up with both hands and swatted her shadowing bangs away from her eyes, holding her face. I tried not to show my slight fear. My teacher, of who knows how many years…was human?

"…I can't explain it. Please. We'll figure this out eventually."

Her face suddenly shot up from her hands, staking my feet to the floor with one look. The sadness, the weakness, all gone. The teacher was back in control.

"I've taught you everything. Everything. You were one of my best. And then you dropped the whole thing, ran off with some old cripple of a manager. Then you have the nerve…to come back."

If this had been Kirby, Janet, or my mother wearing high heels she would have leaned in to make things worse. But she stayed where she was, she knew she didn't need size for this.

"…as a realistic, extremely effective fighter that puts my entire teaching style to shame. Even if you weren't…whatever, I'm all out of sparring partners."

…what about that one guy? He didn't exactly say he _didn't_ want to do it again. And he won't be able to until they take his jaw out of traction, why make assumptions?

"…Alonso. Alan. Detective. Superman. I don't care!"

I felt my collar tighten, and suddenly my spine was screaming for some one to call 911 and her face was an inch from mine. I hadn't even seen her hand move. I managed to keep from passing out as she finished, landing some saliva on my chin with an authentic Cuban charm and an urban accent she'd been holding in her entire adult life.

"You're outta' here! You're makin' me look bad!"

Suddenly I could breathe again, and her golden face now just a view of the far wall. I was still bent over in the angle she'd left me in, I heard a voice retreating to my left.

"Enough of that. Meet me outside."

I heard a door close, and I slowly looked around to find myself hunched over in an empty storefront. Eventually I popped my spine back into place and limped out the front door. A few minutes later, my aunt walked out in her street clothes and barely looked over at where I was leaning against my bike. She went straight over to her old cruiser, sliding her shades on and literally vaulting her light frame onto the bike in one smooth motion. As she pulled out her keys she spoke out of the side of her mouth toward me, not turning her head to look.

"Mind locking up? This is a slow season, and all my regulars have keys."

I nearly dropped the keys she threw at me while she turned her other set in the transmission. I started in pure confusion at the shiny objects, hardly noticing how she reached into her windbreaker and moved her hand around a bit.

"Oh yeah. If you want to keep whining about being inferior, this should shut you up."

Her wrist flicked, and I felt something slap against my other arm. I didn't look to see what it was, my head snapped up to stare at her and calmly ask.

"…are you okay?"

She slowly turned, my reflection sliding across her mirrored shades as she gave a little shrug.

"…not exactly. Alcoholic mother, four sisters who can't get over it, my youngest son just got his third earring, my husband is trying to be twenty nine again, my nephew is fighting crime, and my doctor thinks I'm starting 'menopause' even though I'm in the best shape of my life. "

Her bike jumped to life as she turned to look through the curved windshield behind the miniature one she called sunglasses.

"And I'm dealing with it, by spending all my time killing the ozone with this thing until life straightens out. Don't forget the blinds."

And she was gone, swerving out of sight and leaving me in a cloud of exhaust and pure utter insanity. When the smoke cleared enough to see my own hand, I realized she had just taken off and thrown me the belt she'd been using to tie her outfit together.

You know. That _black_ one? Like Kirby has, along with every other real martial artist on this giant freakin' wet rock of a planet? And the one thing I'd given up all hope for after nearly eight years as a brown.

I stared at the threadbare scrap of fabric for a few seconds before speaking my thoughts to the emptiness of the block. Something more important than my life's work in combat. Which had both peaked and ended in one conversation, thanks to the other half of my life. This was _much_ more serious.

"…how long before my _Mom _flips out like that? That would've been weird enough _without _that last little feminine hygiene blurb…"

My torso snapped around as I heard some one gasp and practically groan in agony from right behind me.

Standing there, dog at her heels, was that one woman. With the pink shirt, and the obsessive compulsive dog walking thing. She pointed a gigantic finger at me and nearly yelled.

"I did _not just hear that!_"

…she'd walked up behind me to eavesdrop, and found that offensive. I just narrowed one eye at her, not in the right mood for it.

"…Lady? It's a natural part of life. Like you've _never, ever_ stood in the middle of a parking area holding a top-degree martial arts rank and the keys to a school you've just been kicked out of for fighting crimes with supernatural abilities, and then pondered when that specific part of the female life cycle is going to literally tear your face off?"

She stood there, blond curls twitching. A few seconds of open-mouth staring, followed by her thrusting out a silver canister in one trembling hand and literally screaming.

"_I take self defense classes!"_

…she was threatening me. With pepper spray. Which she was holding upside-down. I simply said in the same blank tone my aunt had just beaten me into a pulp with.

"…Boo."

With that she screamed again and trampled the sidewalk in a sluggish sprint away from where I stood calmly, dragging that tiny dog behind her as it struggled to get its feet back on the ground. I just shook my head and walked over to the door of my former dojo.

"…What, a _weirdo._"

The people you meet walking around when everyone else is at work. Man, all it took was one long sentence to set her off like that.

Now onto a more important note. Since I was being fired, more or less, I walked out of there with a huge bag of those expensive but pointless weapons Kirby likes and a few pairs of those black gi pants. They're really comfortable.

You know, when this initial state of calming shock wears off I'm going to be a complete utter invalid.

That Night

Sometimes I wonder how a traveling salesman lived back before telemarketing and later media brainwashing became primary forms of advertising. Did those guys ever walk down a street with their carpet-bag and suit and even recognize a single face? Did they ever find themselves on the doorstep of some one they once knew before they left to seek a higher purpose and ended up selling vacuums in a pyramid scheme? What happened when the person didn't recognize him? How did he feel?

This rambling comes not from the fresh concussion or my having not slept in two weeks. I'm thinking this because for a change of pace, I'm not flying around in a nameless town of city block that I don't know the name of until I catch the news on replay later. I was swooping and zooming around the fields and dirt roads of the farmland I called home. Chasing a ghost. It was like a cop running out on a call and ending up arresting his own neighbor. Like you're using a different pair of eyes than the pair you had that very morning.

And even in the moonless night, my neon green eyes saw everything in near perfect outline. I can't call it perfect vision in any spectrum. It's like seeing in black and white. Sometimes I don't even notice my room was dark as a tomb until some one flips the switch and things brighten up like the Wizard of Oz. I don't take advantage of my abilities. Occasionally I may walk through a closed door or dividing wall when I'm the only one home, and maybe I'll conjure up a tennis ball and play with Frost a bit. But my inability to sleep and these built-in NV goggles just meld beautifully. Then again, what do I know, I've never tried heat-vision.

This wasn't some Sunday stroll of a ghost-bust. I wasn't just pulling a trailer off an Indian Burial ground and getting back in time to watch Cops and toast a bagel before bedtime/pretending to go to sleep and sneak out and watch foreign romance films downtown.

No. I got _the_ Headless Horseman himself. And this town is nowhere near New England, or wherever Sleepy Hollow was. Or is. Who cares, it's a Walled-Mart now.

Imagine you're a young farmer's offspring sitting on a parked tractor in the middle of the night and wondering if your sister figured out who that love letter was from. Right when you start digging around in your overalls for something to chew on, your sanity is derailed by what shoots by on the road you're parked next to. What looks like a eight foot tall, armor draped figure riding a reptilian horse the size of a large car. The thing's hooves never really touch the ground, it just sprints in place and somehow moves close to a couple hundred an hour. It's so fast you're left sitting there with a still picture of it burned into your corneas as it speeds off down the countryside with the screams following it,

You quickly notice the rider swinging a rusting hatchet through the air in one iron-bound hand and in the other holds a gigantic pumpkin featuring a demonic green tint and a pair of faces which were both screaming in agony and laughing in bliss at the same time. Depends on which side of the thing you're looking at, and if you can pry your eyes off the hatchet and the fact his neck is a gaping black hole in the torso piece of the Victorian armor that was being held together by pure magic, its bindings were torn to shreds and the plates slashed with bright green stains that could have been blood. Whose? Who cares, you just sit there on the rig staring into the dark corn field with watering eyes for a few seconds until another object zooms by the same path and road the last apparition had taken. This one, deathly silent and shapeless. All you could catch was dark blur in the clouded moonlight, possibly a brief flash of two green embers as it looked at you before locking back onto the former. It disappears at the same speed the last one had, faster than a stationary eye can follow. A shadow bullet following the dead knight. By now your hand is clutching the reverse lever, trying to build up the nerve to run when your head is once more snapped to and fro as a slightly slower, and refreshingly normal projectile tears by and leaves you in a merciful cloud of dust. As you clutch your stinging eyes, you could have worn it was some one on a motorcycle gunning it down the stretch after the first two. With the high beams glowing on the front, like a lantern chasing away the spirits to the edge of the county.

You wait for the rest of the parade, and a few hours later you may walk home in a daze and don't look out the windows until dawn.

That's how this would look to a pedestrian. I just pray no one saw this, the first person view is even scarier.

The swinging pumpkin of a head screeched through one of its mouths as the beast of a figure swung his reddened blade to his left and the blade sent a flurry of curved green rays spiraling beside the scaled horse's flank. As gravity took hold they were shot straight back like a flier out of a car window on the highway. Straight at me.

With a shallow grunt I veered sharply to the right and managed to save my neck from mirroring the guy I'd been chasing. I heard a tearing sound, but didn't look down. I kept my eyes straight ahead, watching as my evasive turn gave him another few yards ahead. I slammed my ankles together and shot up on his other side while arcing a single ball of flame over my shoulder straight at the hand he held the pumpkin with. He moved his wrist, letting the ball land head-on with the possessed vegetable. The dual laughter only got louder as my blast bounced right off of it. I knew it wouldn't work, that's why I was aiming for his arm.

I saw the axe twitch in his grip and quickly squeezed the brake and got behind him to watch another wave of ecto-razors slice the air Id been occupying and disappear when they didn't hit home.

I'd been aware of the faint noise behind me, the engine of the bike straining against the chasis as Kirby tried to navigate the inferior road conditions under the glow of the front flare lights and keep up at the same time. I was surprised when the sounds grew louder and I found myself flying next to a the red tomahawk of a vehicle as she crouched over the handles like a cat coiled for a pounce. She yelled out over the roar of the straining engine and the relentless wind streaking by.

"Did it work?"

I kept my eyes on his back, not daring to roll them. I yelled out the side of my mouth.

"Yeah, we're just heading back to his place for a beer. What brand you like?"

My eyes tightened as I saw a light forming beyond the bouncing shoulders of the knight, quickly becoming blinding. I abandoned my focus to just swerve over and grab Kirby's shoulders as she struggled to control the horsepower. Within the pace of a second I phased both the wind-burned rider and the bike itself as a car that had been driving against the direction we were headed swerved right through she'd been riding. As the blared horn disappeared behind us, I let go and shot off ahead of the bike to catch the further retreating form of the horseman as she yelled something between a thank you and a family curse for not telling her the car was coming. Minutes later I managed to get beside him again, launching a few more worthless shots until he bucked against the dragon of a mount and shot off down the dark road as if he'd let go of the brake handle. I cursed at my luck, preparing to shoot ahead again before the bike caught up to me again. I kept looking ahead to where the black-and-white shadow of my foe was keeping his hatchet ready. I heard our pace-girl yell.

"Where are we headed?"

I slowed down a bit, to only about what the bike was going with all the gauges popping. I shrugged, keeping my face forward into the wind as it specked clouds of dirt across my eyes and flapping bangs.

"Nowhere! There's a little ditch coming up, he'll probably jump it!"

Silence. Well, thundering and whistling galore but no one spoke.

"…is there a bridge?"

I glanced over at where she was hugging her torso against the bike frame to protect herself from the chilling wind tearing into her jacket. She kept her eyes straight ahead over the high beams. At this speed, one bump in the road could scrap this entire operation.

I suddenly understood the question and nodded before looking back ahead and spreading my arms. I encased both my hands down to the wrists in energy, muttering a quick but needed prayer under my breath before flaring both hands open and kicking my legs together at the same time. I don't think it mattered that I kept my eyes open. Everything just went from black and white to pure green for a second.

The very next instant I was rolling sideways against the rock-studded dirt. I quickly stuck a leg out and used the momentum to launch myself out of the roll and onto my feet. I snapped my eyes around to see where I'd landed, sighing in relief as I saw a jagged ditch cutting through the ground before me. Ignoring the shooting pains in my back and legs I sprinted/flew to the very edge of it, seeing in my faint vision that it was deep enough to have been a river at one point. And the abandoned road we'd been running goes right through it, no bridge.

When I reached the edge I practically did a home base slide onto my knees, slamming two fists into the dusted soil as I looked up and saw a sight that killed the moment of calm I had given myself. On the other edge of the ditch, coming down the arrow-straight road, was what looked like a and yellow cloud barreling straight for the ditch from a couple miles away.

…moving a couple hundred an hour, I had approximately two seconds to pull this off.

With my fists still imbedded in the turf, I began concentrating everything I had left over from the chase and that last speed burst into a single mental image. Almost instantly a narrow, but solid green platform appeared to join the two halves of the ditch together in an extremely simple and temporary bridge. Right as it solidified, the sounds of pounding hooves/claws was echoing toward me on the wind. I was crouched down like a cat on one side of the ditch, right in the middle of the platform's edge. The middle of the road. What would Mr. Miyagi say.

I kept my eyes up as the mounted beast and its demonic rider crashed toward the bridge'. As the speeding nightmare rushed straight at my eyes like a bat out of Hades, I just gritted my teeth and waited for the axe to finish its swing. I didn't think it'd work, I had kissed my head goodbye.

Then, it all stopped. The giant knight with his axe shouldered to swing. The double-sided pumpkin hanging from his hand in a frozen laugh. The 'horse' was in mid-gallop when it hit the center of the bridge, and for a millisecond the pair hung there like a statue before a blinding white light slammed my eyelids closed and I gripped the cracked turf like a lifeline. When it faded as quickly as it came, I cracked open one eye and saw not the Pearly Gates but an empty green platform stretched out before where I lay.

…always pay attention to fairy tales.

I let out a sharp sigh.

"Thank you, G…_SHIT!"_

My cry of victory had been cut short. I hadn't noticed that blinding light was still there. I had looked down in relief and saw a Termisake 750, which had been tailing the demon by a few yards before he disappeared, with its front tire spinning a few inches from my face. Thanks mostly to my built-in reflexes rather than my abilities or composure, I phased out and tightened my frame against the dirt as the bike went right through me before dropped off the bridge and flew off down the road behind me.

Nearly a full minute after it was gone, I opened my eyes to see the bridge had disappeared from existence. And beyond it, nothing but a dark road lined with corn fields. Still holding back the pains coursing from every intact nerve ending, I looked over my shoulder to see a distant white light flick off next to the road. She hadn't crashed. With a weak nod directed at the starless sky, I collapsed onto my stomach without caring to tilt my face away from the turf.

Never, has the sound of bending cartilage on dirt been so welcome.

I just let myself settle for a while, too weak to even straighten out my limbs. Eventually I became aware of brushing footsteps approaching, accompanied with a disembodied but frantic voice.

"…_where'd he go?"_

With a quick twist I swung my face to the side and let my cheek tap down onto a sharp pebble.

"…he…can't…cross…"

The voice was now right in my upturned ear, I felt two hands pulling at my shoulder to try and roll me over.

"What?"

I spat out what was either a tooth or a small rock.

"A bridge. Just like the story."

My eyes watered as I felt myself being rolled into an infinitely more comfortable position flat on my back.

"Alan? I was asking if there was a bridge, because the bike can't _fly!_ You should've told me, I would have stayed behind!"

I managed to open one eye a crack, seeing only a black sky.

"…wait…you weren't…"

I felt the hands again, she was pulling on my jacket to see if my torso had been crushed. It hadn't. I just felt like a battery split open on a driveway in the middle of July.

"_Shhh."_

I went quiet as she felt my chest through my sweat-darkened shirt and then felt my limbs to see if the bones had been snapped. By the time she got around to squinting through the dark at my face to see if she could even recognize me, I had regained some feeling in my limbs. Not all of it, just a little. I swallowed, tasting dirt.

"…the bike?"

She closed my jacket, quickly feeling my thigh bone before giving up on finding any wounds and just kneeling next to me in complete darkness. Her voice sounded calmer, her lilt smoothing out and this making her English easier to understand without a degree in Spanish.

"…I was running on fumes back there. When I killed the engine the whole thing went out. Besides that, she's fine."

Great. Out of gas _and_ physical energy.

"How'd you do that one thing?"

I pried open the other eye, letting my outlined vision kick in before looking over at her without turning my head. She was sitting cross-legged beside me, chin in her hands. In the middle of a dead road, on the shore of a dead river, talking to a half-dead guy. No pun intended.

"Do what?"

I always imagined her eyes glowing in the dark. But no, all I saw what a gray line outline of her head poking out the collar of one of my stolen jackets.

"The flash thing. You lapped him like he was a headless chicken."

I would have shrugged if I could feel my shoulders.

"…I used two ecto-blasts for a boost. I can only do that when there's nothing to run into, it's like a human cannonball."

"Then how'd you land here?"

"…Prayer? Don't ask me. Mathematically I should be ten kinds of worm food before the sun comes up everyday."

A twinkling giggle chimed in rhythm with the crickets and whatever else lived in these fields. Amazing, she nearly turns into a traffic statistic and she's laughing at my jokes. If we weren't related and if I could move my arms, I'd shake her hand or something. Whatever a guy does with a girl after a few dates, remind me to read up on that later.

"You can shift back, not like anyone could see."

I managed to gather the strength to flex my toes against the lining of my shoes.

"Can't. Takes more power to shift forms than it does to stay in one. This isn't a super-form deal, it's a disguise."

…you follow that? Kirby didn't.

Even if you did keep up, you'd be confused. You see, when I 'leather up' I'm not like powering up. I'm just shifting colors around. All my powers are active when I'm human. I just shift for the minimal identity protection it provides. After a few months, I just shifted on reflex whenever I used my powers. I haven't been evolving or developing or anything since the portal got me, I've been adapting. A few months ago it was hard to fire two blasts without a ten minute rest period in between. I could move them around a bit, just drift around a little. And now I'm making bridges and props for my impromptu comedy routines.

I'm like a Green Lantern. With ADD.

How'd we get home? I wasn't exactly my usual self for a day or so. And the bike would be down until I could cart it to a station and get the tank filled. We were completely stranded out there.

…until an event occurred involving a passing hay-truck full of overworked farmers and Kirby tying her shoe in a suggestive pose that I later forgave simply because it got us a ride. Actually, she wasn't flagging them down or being a sleaze to begin with. She just…ties her shoes like that. You're talking to a guy who can become invisible at will, trust me on this.

Later, Early Morning

I should have just stashed the thing under my mattress until I could walk upstairs without passing out. But being the paranoid I am, and having heard Kirby's sleep mumbling through the divider wall, I wanted it over with as soon as possible.

Twenty minutes later, I was halfway up the steps.

Another ten minutes and a moment of breathing flew by and I found myself in the lamp-lit library that rested over our heads on the fourth floor. I noticed how the bare wood of the unfilled shelves made the place look slightly normal in the orange lighting of the dying lamp. I soon found myself kneeling over an overstuffed footrest that was collecting dust in front of an equally stuffy and unused chair. The piece of furniture looked plain as day. Dark oak base, cracked green leather pulled over the top. If you looked closely you could make out a crack running through each side of the base. But since there was no sign of a lock or hinge on the outside, it looked like a construction seam.

With a ragged breath, I watched my hand slowly fade out of the physical realm before reaching through the base and feeling around inside the hollow base for a latch. When a click sounded, I lifted the cushioned lid off the base and let my now solid hand stay inside the carefully hidden storage area inside the forgotten ataman.

I slowly let my eyes drift over the carefully crammed contents of the oak-lined cabinet. The centerpiece of the drawer was what was piled up on the far side. A very thick stack of what looked like oversize belts with gigantic coins for buckles. I knew without counting how many were there. Probably a few over a dozen. And hidden underneath the silk bindings was a wooden box containing several gold chains, each complete with a tiny boxing glove medallion. Just like the one I had hanging over my bed on a plain nail.

Only the first matters. The rest just prove it.

I shook off the philosophy with a jerk of my neck and looked at what had only recently taken over my hiding place. Pile atop the lining of magazines that bore my face of my name on the cover, were several things I just didn't want around. I noticed a thick leather wallet slumped into the corner of the box, the badge inside it glinting out of its side. Pushed against it, a large golden coin on a thick chain. I couldn't remember what those Chinese symbols said, not like it matters.

On another cluttered side lay what looked like a pile of yarn scraps. Actually, it was a small collection of colored cloth belts. With my other hand I reached up and without ceremony opened my fingers. With a light thump the two belts I'd carried up with me joined their brothers. The newcomers, a threadbare brown scrap and a carefully maintained but seasoned black ribbon.

…wait…brown, black…maybe after she straightens out I'll tell her she skipped red.

And now, for the hard part.

I reached into my pocket and slowly withdrew the coiled contents. I stretched out my hand to drop it and slam the lid, but eventually I broke and looked down at what I held. The tiny silver cross and its chain. Dangling from my palm, swinging noiselessly and freezing my hand in place. A few seconds of this and I just grabbed my eyes, letting the cool chain touch my forehead as I just tried to keep the tears back. I choked back a sob, even though I was alone.

…or was I. Like you didn't see it coming.

I didn't bother looking up or demanding answers as a hand touched down on my shoulder from behind me. I didn't wonder how she woke up and followed me up here. I didn't care. She'd seen too much for me to back out by then.

"Well, I knew you had a stash somewhere."

I kept my eyes closed and the necklace pressed into my bangs.

"What do you want, Kirby?"

I heard her shift her weight back as she kneeled next to me, looking down at the chest while keeping her hand on my shoulder.

"…Hey, whatever happened to getting a _red_ belt?"

Her joke didn't exactly play out that well. Slowly I pulled both fists from my eyes and looked at her through a thin curtain of tears. Her glowing smirk quickly straightened and eventually faded into a concerned glance. Her eyes dropped down as she saw the chain dangling from a white-knuckled fist. By the time she looked back up at m I knew the question. With a shaky wrist I tossed the necklace at her, she caught the chain and examined it between two spread palms.

"…it…"

I swallowed.

"…belonged to Walt."

Quickly, she clapped her hands together with the cross between her palms as she suddenly understood. I continued.

"…I told Grace at the funeral…I didn't want it."

The hand she'd clapped down on my shoulder casually feathered out, holding my arm.

"Uh…who _is_ she?"

My eyelids fell down like two lead curtains.

"…his daughter."

Silence. She probably wasn't surprised.

"He made a will. Left everything to his family, a few charities, and a few personal affairs. Grace tried giving me that. Right after we buried him."

I heard her open her mouth. I cut her off.

"…he wore that thing all the time. He wasn't religious, but some priest gave it to him when he was younger. The first time I saw him not wearing it was at the wake."

The hand on my shoulder moved down and rubbed my arm, telling me to go on.

"…Kirby. I was just one of his fighters. He worked with guys way better than ill ever be. Any one of those guys should get that thing."

"And…she found you, and dumped it on you. My kind of girl."

I winced, quickly she patted my tensed upper arm to calm me down.

"That bitch…"

She didn't say a word. A few seconds later I opened my eyes but didn't focus them. I had to finish.

"…I…I'm just not worthy. This guy was a living God, Kirb'. I don't mean a good fighter. This guy could walk on water."

Through my tear-stained eyes I could see her head tilt. She didn't ask what I meant, even though it was the sane thing to ask.

"…I tried to make a deal with myself."

I reached up with my free arm and felt my collar, pulling out the black cord and the silver ankh that Sam had given me eons ago. I hardly ever looked at the engraving on it. Just a drawing.

"…I started wearing this. Kind of a weird tribute. It's not a cross. That was Walt. Old fashioned, but nothing can replace it. And here I am with some cheap Goth piercing."

This somehow gave her an urge to speak.

"Alan, don't talk like that!"

I just looked away, dropping the necklace against my shirt and pulling away from her grasp.

"…it's the truth."

Out of nowhere, she asked something that made me wonder how seriously she was taking this.

"…what about that tattoo? The one on your back?"

I shrugged, knowing the looped cross between my shoulder blades wasn't exactly the same as a necklace.

"Walt was in the Marine Corps. Only tattoo he ever got was a cross. Just like his necklace."

More silence. I kind of liked it, really.

"…now _that_, is a tribute."

Coming from a girl with tribal tattoos that can be hidden with a bikini set, that doesn't mean much.

Suddenly I felt something flip my earlobes. My eyes shot open and I watched Kirby's hand shoot away from my face, holding Sam's necklace. I lunged to grab it back, she simply batted my aching arm away as she quickly undid the fastening on the cheap neck-cord. I watched in utter confusion as she removed the little silver ankh from its string. And after a little fingernail twisting, I watched with widening eyes as my pendent slid down a silver chain and made a pure-ringing tone as it collided gently with another silver cross nearly its same size.

…she just put…_my_ little mark of shame, on Walt's necklace…

Before I could yell for her to take it off, she had draped it over my neck and with a pat on my shoulder and an awkward kiss on my forehead she was already down the steps to the third floor. Leaving me bent over my chest of forbidden glories, staring down at the two symbols bouncing against my heartbeat.

Every time I moved to take off the ankh, my hand wouldn't budge. Even worse. I couldn't bring myself to take it off. And later, when I lay down on my always-made bed to stare at my ceiling the foot-rest had been closed for another era. And I was still wearing the necklace. _My_ necklace. I'm not happy with it, but I can't go against Walt's instruction. Even beyond the grave.

Author's Notes

...yeah, he's got a secret stash. Just like every male teenager in this country. I'll do a typo-homocide tomorrow, as I'm uploading this I have to put away some of PI toys before my better half starts using them for household chores again. Seriously, who uses a 21-inch airweight ASP nightstick to clean under her dresser? But yeah, my little Holmes novel of an experience is over and I'm back to writing like a sane person. Then again...you get the point.


	26. Chapter 26

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

(Pre-Note: Not any more delayed than last time. Personal best. I waited a bit because I wanted to catch the movie they aired Friday night, needed to make sure Butch Hartman didn't turn this story into a rip-off of 'Spider-Girl'. An alternate reality future where old villains show up and joke about how old they are. Thankfully, he left the time/space continuum so knotted and tangled that this could count as a continuation without being AU. Nothing to watch out for, I decided to throw a little focus on a character from the actual series.)

I'm not sure when my father got back from his trip. Judging by the post-it notes sitting around the kitchen, he's been back for days. Then again, I haven't seen my own mother in a week and I'm starting to forget how many sisters I have. I'm guessing three. I mean, they're triplets, right? Kerri, Sherri and…oh yeah…just the two, then.

When did our slightly functional family drift apart? Ask my mom's secretary's secretary or Kerri's personal trainer. Now that the girls have had their two months of summer, it's starting to sink in that they're not in high school anymore. And they haven't applied to a single college. Now, do note that I take two college-level courses online to kill my night hours and to pad out my resume in case I ever have the time to get a job. Have the time, to get a job. That doesn't sound right, but that's the only way to word it.

The twins, are fully immersing themselves in the Fenton-trade to _avoid_ college. They play their cards right, they'll be here after their thirtieth birthday. Instead of the occasional ghost-mag interview and a few twin-appeal cover shots a year, they wanna' go mainstream. For instance, last week I found a business contract sitting on the coffee table. It was a promotional offer from a big-time running-shoe company. I quote, 'Fenton Spook-Trainers! Butt-Kicking Sneaks for the Working Girl!'.

Somewhere, probably in general area of Europe, Jazz Fenton is engraving her face into a desktop over and over again. I think they're targeting the amateur ghost hunter and athletic female market, but 'working girl'? A century and a half of hardcore feminism, and the Fenton line is being used to sell hooker footwear. What next, swimsuit issues?

So the twins are doing photo shoots wearing bubble wrap and call-girl shoes, where's their mother? Suing the suit-skirt off the producer of that documentary. It went straight to DVD, and comes pre-stamped with a bargain bin sticker. So she's sealed up in her office politely yelling into her cell phone about 'our' ruined image.

Ruined? After several generations of wasted lives and links to several man-made disasters, and a poor documentary with bad camera angles is shaming this family? There's a line of emergency rooms named after us. Beat that.

Could have been worse. I could have _been_ in it.

And, James Fenton. Head of the household, leader of the clan, king of the castle. Haven't seen him. Not since I completely lost control of my sanity, took his parenting skills out of the back room of my memory, and beat him over the head with them like a Hot-Wheels track. He's not avoiding me, and I'm not avoiding him. I just think our schedules don't mix. Think about it, most L-Train accidents happen during Monday Night Manly-Ball. Okay, I don't care about athletic correctness, can't I call it football? Whatever it is, we haven't seen each other in nearly a week. This wasn't unusual. This is just a very modern family.

That was our excuse for our Christmas-card picture being a photo-shop montage instead of an actual group picture.

All this withstanding. Imagine how jaw-dropping it was when my father threw open the barn doors in the middle of the night and yelled into the darkened chasm of ancient wood and punching bags.

"_Alan_! You in here?"

It was about four in the morning. He was dressed in one of his baggier jumpsuits, his usually slicked hair tufting up in the back like he'd slept on it. I'm not sure which color. For one thing, it was pitch black outside and even darker inside the barn. And second, my night-vision doesn't distinguish colors at all. He squinted into the curtain of shadows and tried to pick out anything moving among the gently swinging bags and the crooked profiles of the support posts under the loft.

As his eyes adjusted to the complete lack of light, he closed the door behind him. This didn't change the lighting in any way, for some reason we have cloudy nights this time of year. He yelled out to the rows of bubble-wrap cocooned bags.

"I know you're in here. Your bed's empty, and that bike of yours is parked out back."

And the RV is missing, Mr. Holmes. Maybe he wanted me to go out and look for my sisters at some fraternity party they snuck out to. He walked over to where he thought the ladder was, brushing one of the rungs with his outstretched hand.

"…I'm staying up so I can ground your sisters when they get home. While I was up, I figured we needed to talk."

He had received no signal or hint that I was even _near_ the barn, and yet he knew I could hear him. Was it the Overbearing Fenton-Father Sense, or the Overbearing Fenton Ghost-Sense? Meanwhile, far out of sight, I just tilted my head slightly to see him better. In that echo chamber of a barn, you could hear the boards age on a wet day, I had to keep my breathing shallow. He knew where I was, but he didn't need to know _exactly _where.

After feeling around for the ladder a few times, he turned around and leaned back against it. From my angle I could clearly see his feet were bare under his uniformly pressed jumper. He'd probably pull his boots on when my sisters were stumbling off the driveway popping breath mints. I personally don't find the jump suit that intimidating, but the girls were raised fearing the true power of custom-fit nylon. He cleared his throat.

"…I know I'm not a good father, Alan."

I nearly fell out of my hiding place. His gruff, but painfully articulated voice went on, out through the darkness that was as clear as day to my inhuman eyes.

"I went out to Amity Park for a few days. Remember that little museum I mentioned? Jack and Maddie's old place?"

…Nah, too easy.

"Well, it actually gets a bit of foot traffic. I went up to see if we could move it into a museum wing or something, I'd hate to see my old place get trashed by tourists."

He crossed his arms, starting to rattle on like life was a giant grocery list. With the more important parts highlighted.

"Your grandmother flew up and met me there. Helped me dig through the basement for Jack's old filing cabinet. Your name popped up in the conversation."

…Sam? Flying across a continent to dig through some rinky-dink sideshow her in-laws lived in for a while? Well, it's not like it's happened before. Wait…hold it…did he just…

And just like that, he had my complete attention.

He sighed.

"…and she tore me a new one. It was like I was twenty four all over again!"

That's like seven male Fenton years, for intellectual reference. Okay, back to sweating myself into a sickly figure most supermodels would kill their mothers for. He went on, like a ten year old showing where he skinned his leg.

"Your grandmother is a wonderful woman. But God, I think all those slaps to the back of my head killed some brain cells."

I'll refrain from the brain cell numerical reference. For now. In my hiding place, I was wide-eyed at the mental image of my father on the receiving end of that woman's lecturing. Then I imagined eighteen…um…twenty six years of _living_ with that.

Either true love does in fact exist, or Danny was just into Goth girls. I'll flip a coin later.

"She took away the remote control. It was a nice hotel, and they only had _one_ remote."

I'm trying my hardest not to kill the moment, and this guy is…

"…I'm _sorry_."

…never…mind…

There was a loud swallowing noise.

"Alan. I'm sorry. I have to say it. These past few days have been rough on the rest of the family. You don't know how much ghost fighting takes out of us. And we've thought less of you because of this."

A light sniff. As quick as it left, his composure was back.

"Ever since you dropped our lifestyle, you've just dropped out of the family. You probably know all about us. I mean, your room has cable. But we have no clue who _you_ are."

He pushed off the ladder, holding his shoulders to the sides but not hunching them like he did for photo ops. He scanned the motionless chamber surrounding him slowly.

"…I never meant to disown you. It just…happened. I'm not asking for a second chance. I probably don't deserve one."

He slowly stepped toward the doors, his speech winding down. At least I thought it would.

"We all love you, Alan. We always have. Blood's thicker than…ectoplasm."

He shook off his fumble, putting one hand on the door-rail.

"…Whatever. I just had to let you know that I'm not a _complete_ imbecile. You don't have to come out of hiding, I don't need an answer."

He pushed the door gently, it swung open on its own momentum. He stared out into the night for a moment before finishing.

"…I take that back."

Instantly, I felt something tighten in my chest. Must have pulled something the previous night.

"You're not hiding. We just can't see you. I just hope we can change that."

With that the door gently closed into the wooden foundation and the barn was silent. Nothing but the wind passing by the open loft window, and a loose guitar string bouncing against its case. A few seconds later, an electronic beep sounded and there was a bright blue light shining in the beams. Several quick beeps later.

"…You up?"

A digital but tired-sounding voice replied.

"Took him long enough."

Silence.

"…No, I didn't tell him about _that_."

Another gentle wind. This time it came from my own lungs as relief passed over me. Sometimes the ghost-grammar my father uses sends me up walls. Sam's chirping voice heard the sigh.

"All I needed to know. Stop calling me to talk about your insomnia. I have an early class to teach."

A loud click. The blue orb of light extinguished as the phone snapped itself shut with a flick of a wrist. Another night breeze of a sigh, followed by a few minutes of mute darkness. Would have been hours, if not for some jerk's old van squealing up the stretch in front of the house. You could hear the exhaust pipe-organ before he even got close to the house. Then all of a sudden there was a yellow shaft of light tore its way through the loft window. Right onto the intersection of foot-thick beams that crossed right under the point in the roof. And reclining in the cranny of two slightly bent beams, was where I'd been sitting since Kirby had fallen asleep and couldn't hound me for brooding.

I had my back comfortably slouched into the right angle the beams formed. My knees were crossed and bent to gently keep myself from sliding off the beam, about a thirty foot drop. This wasn't a beam a person could climb up to. My location was further explained and made more comfortable by the remarkably comfortable leather jacket draped around my shoulders and padding the wood against my back. My dead-green eyes didn't blink against the harsh spotlight the amped-up headlights had formed.

For a few seconds, I just stared off into the light until it turned around to park next to the house. As I was left in darkness again, I let my clenched fingers part and there was a light clang as I let my 'new' necklace swing from my hand back down onto my stretched tee shirt. I could hear the wayward ankh clank against the zipper of the jacket. The traditional cross had just plopped right against my aching chest without a hitch. I knew how the two of them sounded differently by now, I'd just been sitting there playing with those two little crosses on the chain they forcibly shared. In total darkness. In full ghost form.

Like I said. It was weird enough before he walked in.

Soon enough, the crystal sound of car doors slamming. Then rapid footsteps on soil. Then the muffled bellowing of my father coming from the direction of the house making melody with rapidly retreating car exhaust. I guess my sisters got a ride back, and my dad probably ran the poor guys right off the property.

Soon enough an equally loud but sharper voice joined in. My mom had woken up. As the parental ranting cranked up the volume, I just stroked my thumb against the dull edges of the silver cross absentmindedly. My mind wasn't in the living room as the twins got grilled. Or in Amity Park where my father had left some of his insanity. No, it was somewhere else. It was in a greasy little boxing gym. Seven years ago next November. Some time after four in a cloudy day. When the front door was propped open with a brick to let the breeze in, inviting people off the sidewalk who needed directions because they couldn't even read the street signs.

You wanna' know why I didn't believe in ghosts six months ago?

Because a guy who really made something of himself out of nothing at all, whose presence was a gift to all those around him, died. And I got news for ya'. He isn't coming back.

Why do only freaks of nature and complete losers stick around? Why not _Walt_?

The Next Day

The county fair. Probably the closest thing to a freak show this country has since Ripley's offended the wrong conjoined twin midget and the lawsuit came down to a girl with clear eyelids crying on command to win over the jury. But the freak-fandom lives on. And you get a ticket discount for wearing a cowboy hat. I just hopped the fence while everyone was crowding around a pig with two heads or something.

I'd first heard about this thing years ago. The farmers that have fields next to our property occasionally swagger over and invite us to a hoe-down or something. They think they're doing the right thing, converting thems Hollywood folks to the country way. I've never taken up the offer. Kirby went to a church get-together once, came back a half hour later and didn't say why. Either the Kool-Aid had something in it, or some guy had tried to woo her with some high-school Spanish. Or maybe she got the date wrong, who knows.

Now I realize I wasn't missing that much.

It was a little thing the locals put together twice a summer. One of those contests where they judge animals, a portable platform with ropes on the end where the local men had a friendly folk-style wrestling tournament. All the little restaurants in the area had set up a wall of stands and covered booths. And somehow, there was a wireless company representative with a trailer full of ready-programmed phones and other gadgets

This was a crowd that considered a pair of overalls with no shirt to be a week-day outfit. Every one of them probably had a camera phone or better, talk about preaching to the choir. This is the twenty first century. We have childproof pill bottles that _teenagers_ can't even open. We're still working on those flying cars that fold into briefcases, though.Those things are complete gas-hogs.

And as I stood in the center of the roped-off fairground, I could not see a single person. All the booths were left unattended, and there were barnyard animals dressed in tacky human clothing wandering around in newfound freedom. As a gigantic boar pig wearing a top hat trotted by, I just watched it go by with frozen, uneven eyebrows. Maybe this wasn't as popular a party as that guy with no teeth said it was. I paced the flattened grass clearing a few times before finally spotting some movement in a fish and French fry stand.

I must've waited at the counter for a good few minutes before a stout woman in an apron waddled out of the back and scowled at me. All of a sudden there was a sausage-shaped finger pointed at my temple.

"…you wearing _earrings, _Boy?"

I slowly glanced sideways at the tiny green antenna poking out of my sideburns. I mumbled.

"Um…my girlfriend wants me to go metro…hey, where is everyone?"

The sunburned woman stared up at me for a while before clicking her teeth.

"Some band is playing behind the contest barn. Don't ask me, I'm deaf as a post when it comes to 'tunes. You want anything?"

Politely, I declined and took a few inch-steps to my right before breaking out into a full sprint toward where shed waved that gigantic finger after she finished commented on my male jewelry. A few seconds of pounding grass later, I swerved around the judging tent and saw a good sized crowd of people facing away from me. I quickly scanned the backs of their heads for any sign of panic or blank red eyes before sliding to a stop along the dew-slick turf and trying to see what they were looking at.

I thought for a second, then yelled.

"HEY! One of the pigs just grew a second head that looks like Willy Clinton!"

…nobody looked. Deformed farm animals involving a former president, and nobody looks. Something's not right here. I slowly walked up to the row of tan-lined backs to get a closer look. When I stopped a few feet behind the crowd, they still hadn't moved. I narrowed my eyes at the forest of ram-rod straight backs before leaning up a bit and peering over some of the shorter people to see what, or who, the big attraction was.

Just visible over some one's mesh baseball cap, was a folding stage some one must have set up after the planned events were laid out. I could make out a bobbing blue cowboy hat and the tops of some speakers. The crowd was motionless, but who ever was on stage must be going full torque judging by the bouncing speakers.

…yet there is no sound what so ever. I reached up to clean out my ears out of pure formality, and the feel of warm metal made me remember I was wearing those Fenton-Phones Sam gave me when she wanted me to go metro.

See? I'm not a _complete_ liar.

I thoughtfully tapped the little microphone piece, pulling it slightly our of my eardrum. A sudden blast of a steel guitar riff made me jam it right back in, pulling my hand away as if it'd sparked.

"Ecto-noise…?"

After one more glance at the standing but comatose crowd, I pressed my ankles together and clicked the heels of my worn trainers together. Slowly I lifted up off the ground and hovered a foot over my damp footprints as I looked right over the crowd at the now exposed attraction.

…a country western band.

I kid you not. Spread out on the little stage was a four person western bit complete with vests and cowboy hats. One look at the frozen crowd was enough to nullify that, I was the only adult male without a ten gallon over my ears. But one little thing that caught my attention after I recovered from the sight of grown men wearing chaps.

The lead singer had milk-white skin, and had a braided blue ponytail swinging against her baggy leather short pants as she screamed into the mike from under a pulled down cowhand cap. The disguise didn't hold any longer than it took me to recognize the sharpie marker make-up.

Ember.

And she doesn't look half bad. She must be old enough to qualify for Medicare or something, or there's a wizard of a reconstructive surgeon with an office in the Ghost Zone. I watched her blue lips smack rhythmically against each other as she screamed out a song I couldn't hear. Her green-skinned backups were banging on their instruments like they were rentals. And not a sound reached my ears, like some one tapped the mute button during a music video.

I hung there, watching the song play out as her new fans remained motionless in rapture and she didn't even notice judging by the jerking movements she was making with the handheld mike. As she yelled down into the silver receiver with sapphire lips wide, I just crossed my arms and slowly broke into a light smirk at the sight before me. C'mon. Sleazy dead girl singing country without a guitar, that's a dirty joke waiting to happen.

Eventually, her silent screeching subsided and the crowd raised their arms automatically and slowly clapped at the same volume. My practically deaf ears were instantly reawakened by the noise of human skin on skin, followed by a frantic yelp through the straining speakers.

"_Thank you! Be sure to check out our next album, set for shipping next fall!"_

…wow…that's more rock and roll than 'God Bless America. While the farmers/automatons kept clapping in perfect unison, she dramatically hopped down off the stage and started strutting away from the crowd of flesh statues as her thugs stayed onstage to pack up their instruments into dark green cases. Still hovering behind the crowd with my head on a pedestal, I watched her just walk off to the side and off towards the gravel parking lot on the other side of the fairground. No bodyguards. And, no guitar in sight…

Quickly, I dropped back down the motionless mob. Before my heels even touched down, I had my eyes closed and my hands on both temples. An old acting exercise Kirby had taught me. I found out later she was pulling my leg, but I find it works.

"Okay…you're a brand new groupie…skipped school to come here…trying to make it with a washed up rocker…motive is…teenage hormones…"

A few seconds of concentrating later I snapped my eyes open into an extremely stupid-looking grin with my eyes admiring the very air before me. Taking a deep breath through my tightened face, I took off after her in a gangly jog that I haven't used since freshman year. I'm not an actor. I'm just a good liar.

She was just swinging her legs in front of each other in an easygoing strut, not seeming to have a care in the world. Heck, Kirby walked out of that last concert the same way. Of course, when she turned on one leather heel to see a tee-shirt draped and eager-looking fan stomp up toward her, she went from satisfied musician, to…

"…Hey there, Blue-Eyes...You just want an autograph, or how'd you like to help load our van?'

…complete…female…canine…

I purposely tripped into a stop, tearing up the grass slightly like any male loser would. I kept the fake grin going, stuttering in an also forced surfer accent.

"E…Ember? I, I love your music! The lyrics, the songs, that…"

Yes, I wanted to sound that pathetic. It worked. She flashed a self-assured grin from under that dreadful hat of hers and spun all the way to face me. I kept my eyes widened, but managed to note the way her ponytail hadn't extended since she'd been on stage. Must have been a below-average applause or something.

Cheap show or not, she must love being admired. I saw her semi-gracefully flick her wrist, and suddenly there was a blue hat brim covered my eyebrows.

She'd…given me her hat. Note to self. Burn off hair. I forced myself to blush, opening my mouth to thank her. Predictably, she cut me off with another smile and she was suddenly holding a pen.

…please, don't tell me she had that in her hair…

I nearly pulled a facial muscle. Without asking permission, she's a musician after all, she'd rolled up my tee shirt sleeve and was carving her mark into my rock-hard bulge of a tricep with a rather sharp marker point. Managing to keep my eye twitch stable, I made off as a truly thankful fan. When she finally stopped mutilating my arm with her blue marker that she probably sharpened with a file, she winked and turned to walk onward to the parking lot. Just another encounter to fuel her ego. When she got about five feet away, I burst out.

"Wait! Ember, I have this friend, and…"

She stopped in mid step. She sighed dreamily, slowly turning back with a roll of her eyes.

"No problem! Anything for my…"

…her eyes rolled down, to see a burnt-tan young man in a black-slick jacket with matching black/gray attire. Wearing her blue cowboy hat down over his brow like the Lone Ranger, and underneath it flashing, her a truly corny but sparkling white grin. With a light green grass stalk hanging off his lower lip to complete the gag.

"…fans…"

I grinned wider, tilting the hat brim to let her see one of my flaring green eyes and faking an accent that would have impressed anyone at the now deserted fair.

"Howdy, Ma'am…"

…did I mention how natural that felt? Faking a Clint Eastwood rasp is second nature to me in ghost form. Right up there with flying and that little thing where people turn around and get scared when they see me. Speaking of which…

For a few seconds, she just stood there. Still smiling, at the top of her game. Then she extended one hand to her side and caught a bright blue guitar that had either been thrown to her, or had just flown to her palm by its self. With a screeched curse she mounted it and took off into the air. Watching her shoot off, I just spat out the grass stalk I'd plucked while she was saying how much she'd love to meet me. It tasted terrible.

She got a good hundred yards going vertical, letting her cowgirl outfit somehow shift back into her usual skimpy rocker outfit as she urged her axe faster and higher with every frantic pant of her already spent lungs.

She looked over her now hardly covered shoulder, checking to see if she was being chased before looking back ahead and seeing me standing with both shoes firmly planted on the leading edge of the guitar, right in front of her lead foot. The hat had fallen off, so my whipping bangs nearly touched her forehead as she realized I was blocking her steering vision. While holding my hands behind my back and tilting my head at her coyly. Of course I'd stopped grinning like that, resigning to the back-up smirk.

Her ink-darkened eyes shot open against her milky complexion before snapping back down as she sent a loose fist flying at my midsection. I just twisted to the side, letting her take out her frustration on the rapidly thinning atmosphere. As she pulled back the faulty blow and braced her leg for a kick, I plainly asked as if we were sharing the back seat of a taxi.

"No offense, but _country? _What happened? You switch from party drugs to plain alcohol, _why_?"

Her newly transformed platform heel landed right in my waiting palm. I resisted the reflex to crack her like a whip. Instead, I pushed off the front of the flying guitar and kept my grip on her lower ankle as she yelped in more surprise than pain. She managed to swing her other leg up with it and soon found herself up-side down and watching her guitar and main source of power zoom off over the farm fields in the distance. And I was still hovering vertically, my outstretched hand acting as her lifeline.

Checkmate. King me.

Eventually, her eyes narrowed back into a scowl and she looked down at her feet, or up at me depending on your point of view, with an angry sigh.

"Before you judge me…"

I held her out at arm's length, dangling her stretched body over the free drop as she reached up and almost casually did something with her hair. I then watched with mild surprise and amusement as her ponytail detached and fluttered down a hundred feet to the stretch of grass underneath us.

"…you…wore an extension?"

…underneath that (braided…should've caught that) extension, her hair was extremely short compared to that night onstage. Barely enough to tie in a ponytail like she did. If she'd been standing up, it may have dropped past her neck at longest. I whistled slowly, prompting a tighter frown from my captive. She mumbled through gritted teeth. Probably jaw implants, I recall finding a few teeth embedded in my shoe-sole after the last time we crossed paths.

"…like you said…this is country."

…so, _that's_ why this fight lasted…Just a second.

"Hey, you got the time?"

She checked the silver watch on the leather-strapped wrist she was letting hang over her head helplessly.

"….like, two forty three."

…so, _that's _why the fight lasted about…thirty seconds…she's practically powerless when her hair's that short! That crowd wasn't under her spell. They were just staring at a freak show to be polite. She then asked, sounding suddenly bored.

"…well, you got me. What lunchtime accessory will I be gracing my presence with _this_ time?"

I gently began to move her ankle back and forth, swinging her slightly before getting my timing down and swinging her all the way over my shoulder into a makeshift fireman's carry. As in she was draped over one shoulder, her legs over my right side as she got a face full of the back of my jacket. Could have been worse, I could have gotten some silver studs and spelled out my name back there. A muffled complaint.

"…you actually _forgot_ the thermos? I thought Desiree was just being a…"

I quickly jerked the shoulder she was bent over, shutting her up successfully.

"Don't make this any more awkward. There isn't a mosh pit in the country that can catch you from this high up, I'd suggest keeping quiet."

What? She obviously can't fly unaided. And since we're a good hundred yards off the ground, it's my turn to deal cards. I give her credit. Most ghosts would just keep kicking and screaming as if they _wanted_ to be dropped. But she just stayed over my shoulder silently, apparently having some dignity left over after becoming a cheap country singer and trying to prep her album at a county fair.

A few minutes later I was flying at a good clip over fifty miles an hour. Why not faster? She'd probably fly off at ninety, or try to get me to crash. As the blurred landscape started to become less green and more brownish, I heard her yell out against my jacket and the wind whipping by.

"I _knew_ you weren't Danny! At least he had some _real_ moves, Mr. Balboa!"

…maybe if I dropped her just the right way, she'd skip like a rock when she hit the ground…I yelled back, checking the position of the sun and gently turning a bit less North.

"Join the club! At least I'm not opening for Toby Keith's grandkid's sister slash wife!"

A loud spitting sound. Great. Now I have to burn the jacket, too. I feel unclean shaking hands with the people at Kirby's parties, now I'm making ungloved contact with a musician old enough to have a social disease left over from Woodstock Episode 2.

"…I have a right to branch out!"

I would have laughed if it wouldn't guarantee letting a bug splatter on my teeth.

"And this wasn't my first choice! That Mexican chick with the legs stole my target listeners!"

I realized I had a good half hour of free flight ahead of me before I even had to a avoid buildings. So I took the risk of hitting a flock of geese and turned to look over my unburdened shoulder while we hurtled through the air over the curve of the rapidly spinning planet. I twisted around enough to see part of her head while the wind whipped my hair the opposite direction from the turn. But now we didn't have to yell to talk to each other.

"…you don't mean…?"

I watched the stump of her ponytail bob slightly as she moved her chin down into her partly exposed white chest. I heard her mumble.

"Yeah. That one girl from the concert. I made my comeback when the market needed some old sounds. Then she came in with that acoustic and made me look like dog-meat."

Actually, now that I'm looking at her closely her skin is the same tint as this one bone Frost likes to carry around. Maybe if the ghost portal in Val's lab isn't working I could just toss her to him like a bone. She's skinny enough, and fits the racial profile.

"Why do you want to take over the world in the first place?"

The wind kept flashing by the ear that was facing it, whistling through the Fenton-Phones which were now hidden in my overgrown silver fur. It's too scraggly to call hair. About sixteen miles of silence later, she arched her back away from my back and managed to make eye contact with me. Upside-down again, but her green irises were lined up with my matching ones just the same. I noticed the tenseness in her tattooed eyes as she explained in a less than eager growl.

"…this is _music, not world domination…!_"

I wasn't impressed.

"Oh! Did the Stones ever brainwash their listeners? Or you more of a Beatles 'Gal?"

She just reared back and spat in my face. The glowing blue glob of fluid made it to an inch from my nose before the momentum of our trajectory sent it flying back behind us just as her guitar had when I'd grabbed her. She instantly pretended that nothing had happened.

"I'm not some sicko with backwards lyrics! I just want to get my name out there!"

I glanced past her head at the flashing ground below us, no sign of concrete yet. Plenty of time to get a few answers. I loosened my smirk slightly, locking eyes with her and bumping egos in the process.

"_Why?_ Why didn't you just do a reality show when you still had a heartbeat?"

My shoulder screamed in silent pain as she grabbed my other shoulder and brought her face an inch from mine. I didn't bat an eyes as she spat.

"_You have no clue what I've been through! I spent my entire LIFE just trying to find a paying gig! Just ONE person who would…!"_

She froze. Her tongue flexed between her perfectly aligned but slightly pointed teeth as if ready to continue screaming. Slowly, she pulled back and crossed her arms, slumping back against my lower back like a kid in time out. With her eyes tightly closed, she once again put her mistake behind her and tried to just be arrested with dignity. Just like any musician would. I kept looking over my shoulder, my eyes tilted down at her. I abandoned my urban cowboy accent for a gentler, purer tone. My own voice. Alan Fenton's voice, not the Phantom's over-the-top rasp.

"…some one who'd remember you…remember your name…?"

She turned away, looking off over the horizon as we kept flying straight towards the city. I noticed her elbows clenching tighter, acting as if I wasn't there. I'd struck a nerve. I could have just turned back ahead and enjoyed the silence. But no, I kept looking back at her.

"It was tough, right? Those rainy nights in doorways. The borrowed couches every night. All you needed was one place that would ask you to come back."

Without even moving my eyes, I urged myself to start to lower our airspeed. The wind started dying down, making it easier to speak. She didn't look at me, not reacting to the slowing down.

"You're not a diva. You're a rocker. You started out with nothing, right? You're a bit out there, but it's all about the music."

She didn't move. The braking continued, now individual trees were visible as we stopped clocking miles a minute.

"…what happened, Ember? Why didn't you make it?"

She didn't turn her head, but I could barely understand her gravelly retort.

"Who said I didn't make it…"

I noted the fact we were now completely stationary, hanging in the wood-smelling air over what must have been a small forest preserve. Wait…forest preserve…Man, I was going the wrong way to begin with!

"You did."

She spun around to look at me with hate-filled but puzzled eyes. I explained.

"If you'd already made it, you wouldn't have to make it as a ghost."

Her eyes narrowed to thin slits, a shade of white slightly darker than the rest of her complexion.

"What…are you a shrink during the day?"

"No. I just know how to read people. Any older cop could've figured you out, I just happen to know a few musicians."

With this, her eyes practically lit up. More at the musician reference than the psychology trick, she has a one track mind apparently. She kept her eyes on mine as we started floating down to the ground, right over a clearing in the trees I'd spotted while she'd been sulking. She glanced away as she noticed the leaf-heavy tree branches rising around us, but not before shaking her head slightly.

"And people say _I'm_ weird…"

Eventually, my heels crunched down onto a carpet of twigs. With one slanted shrug, I eased her off of me as she planted her heeled boots onto the uneven ground in front of me. She quickly took a step back and adjusted the single straps holding her clothes on. As she bent down to pull up the edge of her left boot, she asked.

"Why'd you stop? There a portal out here you're gonna' throw me through?"

I shook my head, my neck aching from finally twisting back upright.

"Nah. Actually I'm just gonna' let you go."

Hert head snapped up, swinging her loose bangs as she gawked up at me.

"WHAT?"

Then that glare again. Behind her, some chipmunks scattered off into their burrow. I'd found a nice little spot to land in, it was the last peak of summer and the hundreds of thriving green plants and light brown bark on the trees made the dead girl stand out like a thumb in traction.She didn't seem to notice, too busy narrowing her eyes so thin here eyelashes drooped over into her vision.

"…very funny. C'mon, like you don't have a thermos stuffed in that jacket."

I opened the sides of said jacket, showing her the plain black interior lining before closing it back around myself and shrugging. She eyed me again, raising a straight-razor eyebrow.

"You're just…letting me go?"

I shrugged again, jumping off my heels an inch and shooting a few feet off the ground into a hover. She followed me with her eyes, not glancing around the empty forest surrounding us. I went to shoot off through a hole in some branches, but she stopped me with a sharp yell.

"You know, you're not like the other one!"

I looked down at her, arms stretched out at my sides in flight position.

"...Wha'?"

She shrugged, crossing her arms again but keeping one wrist, the one with the single sleeve, propped up beside her face. She glanced away from me and tapped her rounded jaw with one finger.

"The last guy just stuffed me in a thermos. You show up and break six of my molars…"

She still looked away as she then tapped the side of her head.

"…then you make me dig up stuff I haven't thought about since...I fell asleep in a motel room and woke up in the Ghost Zone."

Her wrist dropped against her half-top as she looked up at me again with her eyebrow still cocked like a trigger.

"…what gives?"

I just threw her a half-hearted wink and shot off through the branches, phasing out of sight as I caught a wind thermal.

I knew she'd probably find her way back to civilization by nightfall. Heck, maybe she had enough juice left to summon her guitar or something. Maybe she picked up a phone from that booth at the fair and she just called her band. I don't care.

But I just proved a theory that'd came into existence the night before.

Ghosts, only come back if they didn't pull it off.

Walt, walked out of this dump with the entire silverware set and a bowl of wax fruit stuffed under his coat. Elvis himself made less of an exit.

That Afternoon

Her voice was muffled, I'd slid the door closed and locked it out of pure paranoia.

"Why'd you go down there in the first place?"

I gritted my teeth, continuing my helpless scrubbing over my bathroom sink.

"My ghost sense went off when I was walking into town. Didn't plan on watching her band embarrassing themselves like that."

More scrubbing. She asked again, loud enough to be heard through the door.

"…why are you still washing your hands? I thought you'd get over that 'diseased rocker' thing after your little therapy session."

I sighed, rinsing my hands and drying them on a hanging towel before sliding the door open. Kirby was stretched out in my chair stringing a white oak guitar against her legs as they rested on my computer monitor. She noticed I had my left shirt sleeve pulled up, and even quicker she notice what I'd been trying to wash off for the last hour.

Carved into the hollow on the back of my vein-streaked upper arm, was Ember's sparkling blue and perfectly scripted signature. My cousin just let her eyebrows creep up behind her bangs.

"…how'd she do that, anyway?"

I walked over to my bed and slumped forward onto it.

"Ecto-ink? How do I know…"

As my nose buried itself in the comforter blanket, she specified.

"I mean how neat it is. You have tight freakin' arms, but skin isn't easy to write on."

…Kirby…has signed autographs on human skin?

I just let out a muffled sigh.

"I think she…did it left-handed, now that I think about it."

This must have derailed Kirb's train of thought. Without warning she tossed the bare guitar frame onto the bed next to me and said she had to go polish a left-handed folk guitar she bought last week. As she clomped down the stairs like a two-legged horse, I just stayed face-down on my bed and prayed the signature would fade.

All my shirts are sleeveless. And the last thing I need is a girl's name tattooed on my arm. It doesn't even match that ankh on my back.

Speaking of sacred symbols being used for body art, the twins are very, very grounded. Last night they came come with their names tattooed (my parents didn't realize this, but I think it was just Henn- ink) somewhere on their midriffs. My mom is calling up her secretary's plastic surgeon about laser treatments. Kirby is glad they finally took her fashion advice.

Author's Notes

Alan's moving along the grief cycle. Slowly, but at least he's moving. Ignoring the presence of his estranged family, and not exactly quick to forgive. I apologize for focusing on Ember. I needed to portray Alan's abilities as a natural-born detective. And if I used an original character…well, I have too many original characters as it is. But honestly, would you rather have him asking the Fright Knight if he had commitment problems? Will update sooner if possible, working on some other fanfics on top of my usual columns and article flow.And further apologies for my updating delays and any country music fans that were offended. If it makes things any better, I almost went to a Toby Keith show once. Almost. I stayed home to write about how boxing can save lives. And...eh...my girlfriend rented a Rocky movie that night. I can't turn down a commitment like that.


	27. Chapter 27

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

(Pre-Note: just a warning. This is going to be much grittier than previous chapters. I promise, it won't carry over to future chapters if you find it uncomfortable. And I've managed to keep the details in moderation for those with softer hearts. I wish I meant curse words, I really do, but Alan deals with _real_ monsters sometimes. Apologies in advance, and relax, NO SEX SCENES. I actually have written those. And I've been told they're so hilarious they should be illegal in the South. I can use my humor to suck the adultery and smut right out of that stuff and turn them into good-hearted gag reels that can't do retakes. Trust me, I don't want to offend anyone or split their ribcages from convulsions. This story will remain at this rating, unless I have to describe what Alan could do to a guy with some creative energy manipulation.)

I checked my phone screen for the fourth time. It'd been twenty three minutes.

On the thick border between a downtown city shopping center and the struggling suburbs, was a quaint little block full of Brownstone apartments left over from the 1940s. It was a quiet little street, the faded asphalt road was so cracked it looked like it looked a cobblestone path but the sidewalks had recently been replaced. A few blocks away was an art college, so these century-old flats mostly were rented out to the students who thought the dorm rooms smelled too much like…a dorm room.

An hour to noon on a Wednesday, and things were quieter than one of those outdoor churches that seem to be catching on. I was gently bouncing on my heels in front of a synthetic oak door, staring at the silver intercom system that had been tacked into the stone beside the door like a spaceship sticking out of an asteroid. If it weren't for the top of the line speaker box with its LCD screens asking for passwords I might as well have gone back to the twentieth century. In the middle of a working day.

I hadn't even pressed a button to call a resident. Yet I'd been patiently bouncing here since I secured the area and walked up with one of my father's baseball caps over my ears and a borrowed windbreaker trying to slowly strangle me with its pencil-thin neck hole. The second I heard a car pull up, I was trying my hardest to look even more carefree and casual. Just a guy waiting for the door to buzz open.

I kept my eyes half-open and straight ahead at the bronze numbers sticking out of the recently remodeled doorway. I heard a pair of new sneakers clomp up the worn granite steps and plant themselves in front of the speaker box. The chime of a button being pressed, followed by a well-rehearsed and courteous voice.

"UBS, delivery for Diana Kroll, need a signature."

A few seconds later, another chime and a high-pitched squeak that sounded a good ten feet from the microphone.

"Be right there!"

The click of a call button being released. The faint breathing I was keeping track of with my perked right ear, quickened slightly. Not enough for a guy on an elevator to notice. Just something a psychologist or polygraph specialist would notice and mark off to use both sides of their legal sheet. I Slowly bent my neck and let it softly pop the stiffness out before turning my head slightly and peering over at the delivery man. Much like me, he had his cap pulled down to shield his eyes from the sun. Which was in turn covered with a thick layer of clouds, it was probably going to rain soon.

I let my eyes drop and examined a brown buttoned shirt with the logo over the right breasts and no name-tag. Further down, a pair of black shorts ending just about two pale, blue-veined and bony legs and ending in a pair of brand new black sneakers with white laces. He had a lighter complexion, a bit darker in the face than his obviously pants-suited pale legs that the shorts were exposing,

His hands, just as tan as his half-covered face, were clutching a shoebox sized brown box sealed professionally with tape with the shipping label facing away from the door but easily visible from my side of him. His right arm was squeezing a brown plastic clipboard with a thick stack of forms neatly squared under the clip. His hat-shielded eyes were straight at the fake oak pattern painted onto the particle-wood door. My eyes locked onto the shipping label, taking a moment to translate the sideways-sitting text before turning my head all the way to the side and asking.

"…what's with the shoes?"

With a jerky twist of his neck and arms he moved his parcel to the side and looked down at his sneakers. I heard him mumble.

"Um…left the others at the depot…"

I nodded slowly, watching as he resumed his official posture when faint footsteps were echoing through the thin door. I kept my head turned, just a nameless guy trying to make conversation.

"So, why's Jane Gorda getting her thing delivered to the girl upstairs?"

That package wasn't being sent to Diana Krolls. He'd tried to hide the label, but I'd seen it plain as day even if it was sideways.

With no further questions, his hand shot to the back of his sagging shirt and swung to face me with his other hand shooting out at my shoulder as I stayed facing the door. Before he could reach whatever was tucked into the back of his shorts, the back of his head was introduced to the solid stone wall flanking the door at a speed just slow enough to keep his brain under his hat. His hat bill was knocked sideways, his bloodshot brown eyes widening and dilating in shock as his vision was filled with two green flames that didn't burn.

Another millisecond later, and the door swung into the wallpapered foyer and a shorter-built girl wearing a bandana filled the smaller doorway. Her eyes, their color obscured by a pair of green-tinted reading glasses riding the bridge of her nose, went wide as she saw who was on her front step.

A delivery guy pinned up by the throat, by what I can only describe as the Phantom. You know what he looks like. Does he really need a transformation sequence twice an episode?

One orange hand was around his blubber-padded throat as I held his neck to the wall high enough that his legs dangled and kicked a few inches over the rough-stone ground. The other was braced at my side in a pale-knuckled fist with my locked and ready to begin. I quickly swung my eyes over to the newcomer and made them stop glowing enough so she'd wouldn't faint, looking her straight in the glasses. And ordered her in a calm, but disturbingly rasped voice. I wasn't faking it. Just the sight of this guy was all it took.

"Get back inside. Lock the doors. Call the cops. And don't…"

I looked back at my captive as he swung his brown-sleeved arms back to try and push off the wall. His gurgling gasping was all it took to get my eyes back to high-beam illumination.

"…look back"

The door slammed shut. Followed by pounding footsteps up the stairs as I gritted growled a muted curse, and sent my twitching fist right into the curve of his ribcage. Again. And again. And again.

And in my blinded, deafening rage, I just saw a pair of light grey eyes smiling warmly at me. By the time the sirens were close, I was slicing through the ice-cold layer of clouds over the rapidly shrinking front steps and the mangled figure I knew draped over them. Even if I could have looked back, I wouldn't. By the time I cleared the clouds and hit the blinding sunlight atop them, I'd managed to put it all in the back of my mind.

Later, Kirby samba-ed into my bedroom with her rebellious hair crammed into a baseball cap like sometimes she did on rainy days, and asked where I'd been all. I just watched her tear my closet apart looking for something she could shrink in the washer and tear the sleeves off of. By the time I made up an answer, she was decked out in three pairs of jeans layered on top of each other and a hooded sweat-rag so torn up you could see the black mesh tank top she'd pulled on under it. I think under all that she still had her pajamas on.

"Some guy opened a new stand in the mall. He didn't have a permit to sell _living _shrunken heads in this state, so I tried a citizen's arrest. He just laughed in my face, so then I had to do a citizen's…"

My joke slowly died while my tongue was still on the roof of my mouth. I'd suddenly noticed her outfit as she tap-danced in her bare feet over to the doorway.

"…and…_those_, are_ my_…"

She continued her one-woman Broadway number right down the steps, leaving me on the edge of my seat with my finger pointing accusingly at where she'd been standing.

"…clothes!"

Either I'm not that all together after that thing at the apartment…or all those parking dividers to the head are finally kicking in.

I mean, usually I can get in at least six jokes about street violence before she starts the second tap number. Must be that kind of day.

The Next Day

The balding anchor adjusted his stack of blank reports as he read off the desk-mounted dialogue screen hidden behind them.

"…and a punctured lung among other severe internal damage, extensive rib fractures and a broken wrist, splinter-level concussions along the front of the skull and facial damage beyond recognition. Found by police at 11:26 AM, stabilized at Western Memorial Intensive Care Unit. One possible witness."

His partner, a dark-skinned woman with her hair straightened to the point of denial and tied to the side of her head read off her own lines as the ball bounced over them.

"When police were brought in to help identify the man, fingerprint analysis was used to attempt to identify him. No wallet was found, but robbery was not suspected."

Her partner finished, looking up into the camera after quickly memorizing the last bit.

"…and his thankfully intact fingerprints, identified him as the primary suspect in a break-in turned near-fatal assault on a local college student. Officers have declined press release until the suspect is stabilized. The victim's family, still awaiting her odds of survival, were not available for comment."

The drab scene of the solemn anchors and their silver backdrop and desk was replaced with a photograph scanned over the screen. A section of a senior prom photograph, cropped to show a light-haired girl with a longer face and rather plain features. Which could easily be ignored, thanks to the pair of dazzling gray eyes the photographer must have adjusted his flash for when she walked up. As the viewers observed what she looked like before she was attacked, a voice-over from the male anchor continued.

"The latest situation update specifies the victim, Jamie Huntsen of the East suburbs, as near stable. The details of her extensive injuries were withheld by the hospital staff."

The sound of soft shoes sliding along bare wood floors, and the victim's picture was replaced with a baseball player in a white and green jersey talking into a microphone in the dugout. Instantly, my uncle and myself repositioned ourselves on the couch from leaning forward and interested to reclining and in an ESSPN induced male trance. I tried to pry my eyebrows apart while the MVP stuttered about what had gotten into his shoelacess as Aunt Janet stalked up behind the couch and placed a butter-soft hand on each of our shoulders.

"…since when do you boys watch the Minor Leagues?"

Two identical grunts, prompting a light laugh from the Latin woman as she treaded off in her dancing shoes to continue laying out fresh rugs throughout the extensive apartment stacked above the dance studio's ceiling. She must have a vent open, tango music was faintly echoing from the dining area. All these foreign treasures and furniture themes, and they never bought a stereo. Between living above a musical arts building, and having _Kirby _for a daughter, they didn't need one. As her footsteps reached the far hallway, my uncle tapped the remote balanced on his distended stomach and the two anchors that monopolized the current crime channel on satellite went back to listing off the day's terrible events. As we leaned back over to hear the details of a car-stripping ring that had been exposed in a warehouse fire, I whispered.

"…she doesn't even let you watch the _news?"_

Uncle Carlos, Kirby's father and the forcibly retired detective and cop, just shrugged his work worn shoulders and drummed his fingers on his leisure-grown stomach as if it was a coffee table.

"She's a woman, _Sobrino._ When the doctors first told her that I'd regained consciousness, she slapped me right back out of it. I'm not taking no chances."

…why, is he talking about his little shootout that happened more than a decade ago? It's just that kind of family. When you take fifteen rounds right through the vest, and _survive_, that's a conversation piece. And it may scare your wife so much she breaks down crying (…or clawing, Cuban women somtimes have actual claws thanks to Latino genetics) if you even crack a_ joke_ about going back on the force. Even if you take the desk job they hand out to every bullet-catcher, or even just want to direct traffic on Sundays. No more cop stuff. Exclamation mark.

And so it goes. My uncle works as a carpenter and furniture restoring artist to cater to their traveling/collecting lifestyle, and whenever Janet is out of the room and she's not having one of her psychic kicks, he's teaching me everything to know about what he did before that drug bust went slack.

Does he do this with all his nephews? No. I have a few handfuls of cousins of various ages. Three quarters of them named Juan. And most of them live right here in the city. But for some reason, my fat old cop of an uncle chose me as his heir to the vast knowledge of how pepper spray tastes and how to use a nightstick to scratch an itch under a liquid-injected kevlar vest.

All while Janet's out of the room. Does she know? She's a woman, of course she does. And _this_ woman. Is _psychic_! This isn't an inside joke or a metaphor. It's not like 'Yeah, my mom's a scizo' or 'My cousin spent the night with Angelo Pitt'. This is the real deal. She can look you in the eye, and tell you how to take care of that rash that you're too embarrassed to tell anyone about.

One thing to thank the Holy Ghost herself for. Kirby, has shown absolutely none of her mother's gift. No tarot cards. No mind reading or visions. Just the ability to do absolutely anything and make me look bad while doing it. Martial arts? Kirby studies less combat-based and more acrobatic styles. She does fancy flips and leaps around like a stunt double on speed while I'm slugging it out with air. Music? Like I have to explain it. Metabolism? Took me years of obsessive compulsive power-lifting and bodybuilding circuits to look like I do and lift like I do. I honestly never take my shirt off in public or even try to show it off, but for some reason Walt had me lift and sweat my way into this state because, I quote…'Just trust me, 'Phant. Trust me.'

Kirby. She just bounces around all day living on salads and jelly beans, and has a figure that belongs on a girl who would have it as her only good feature. I imagine if she'd grown up to be shorter, or wider in some places, or thinner, in certain places, she'd be just as successful and psychotic as she is today. But she'd probably have had an easier time sunbathing on the roof of the ranch while our neighbors are walking to church. Sometimes I wonder if she looks good because that's how she feels, or if she got her confidence in the first place from the mirrors strewn throughout the studio.

Who am I kidding? She keeps asking people at the train station if she looks fat, or too skinny depending on the humidity. It'd be like if I walked up to a guy and asked 'Hey, does this bicep make me look scrawny? I mean, it's only the size of your head…should I just try to get in a little more gym time? Few more push-ups' Why do women hate looking at themselves? They look fine. Just don't tattoo our name on a visible area, and keep the pairs of shoes down to three dozen and we're fine. Really. We have the remote control, we'll survive.

I think she gets it from her mother. Janet is pretty much Kirby with even thinner eyebrows and more matured features. Same height, even. I think Kirby's fake ID is just Janet's old one. They could pass as siblings. If it weren't for those gray streaks Janet's been getting. Which instead of just dying and plucking out of existence, she just wears them like highlights in her flowing black trusses and simply tells people black and silver was her school colors. Graduating Class of 1945. She just loved getting older.

My honest opinion as an ignorant male? Janet would get more looks than Kirby in a singles complex, but probably wouldn't get any numbers. Kirby is more 'psycho-eccentric'. Her mother, as I've been told by Aron among the majority of the gym brotherhood, is 'sexy-eccentric'. Exotic jewelry, flirtatious accent and choice of words, a wrist covered in a dozen golden bracelets, and a wedding ring that inspires more disappointed sighs than Rocky V.

Why am I rambling like this? There's a lipstick commercial playing, and I'm trying not to think about anything crime related, ghost related, or wedding until my family and friends find out where I'm hiding and pull me back in by my ankles.

My thirty seconds of normal male thoughts had the life support pulled by my uncle's grunt as his wife went down the stairs to the studio.

"…it's always the women."

My ears pricked up, snapping out of my trance quickly.

"What?"

I assumed he was going to make another marriage analogy. Instead, he sighed.

"I watch this crap every chance I get. This last year…every victim, young, female, always some one who's missed. Back in my day, perps' usually only killed their own. Now the only stuff that makes the news is enough to keep a church filled."

…he had a point. It was the latest trend that no one was wearing or playing. A sharp increase in crimes of a sexual or advanced nature, and an equally unexplained decrease in casual mugging and theft. You don't need a graph for this. Watch the news. Keep your ears open near the counter of the local cop diners. People shouldn't be buying three different identity theft policies as the custom is nowadays. They should be locking their doors at night. Odds are, the jump in psychos and serials what scared off the common thugs and punks.

And I came here to relax. Go figure. I let this sink in, watching the commercial break cut off back to the two anchors and just muttering my agreement in so many words.

"…they should have killed that one guy when they IDed him."

The former detective simply balanced a small bowl of chips on his rounded stomach like a table, flipping one into his mouth with two snapped fingers.

"Real cops don't kill. Best cop I ever met, retired couple weeks back, kept' the gentleman alive and breathing every time things got bad. He got kicked off the West Coast after a few brutality lawsuits. Apparently, live ammunition is more 'humane' than knuckles and sidewalk, _Alonso_."

I stayed slumped back in the ancient couch, not even twitching a brow at the cereal box philosophy. But if we weren't so masculine that we didn't even face each other when a TV was nearby, he would have asked when I started wearing green contacts. And why they changed color when he just said that.

…Thank God for that. I can tell any blood-based Fenton that a wizard with a website on the internet did it, and they'd nod and walk away. But a retired cop with a police academy wing named after him? Before I could hop out the window and say my phone is vibrating and I need to answer it in my home area code, he'd have me rattling off my social security and website history before I even realized I'd cracked.

How do a psychic and a detective sharing a bedroom _not_ figure out what their primary nephew is doing at night? Beats me. That 'former alcoholic sleeping it off in Kirby's room probably has them so emotionally occupied they just mark me off as a teenage rebel and send me off with a bag of cookies and a warning about riding that little red bicycle of mine. This really _should_ be keeping me in a constant state of paranoia…but to a guy who doesn't even eat processed lean meat because of his diet restrictions…chocolate-chip cookies are enough to cure a personality disorder. Or trick me into forking out an engagement ring, that's what worked on my father.

Want to know something sad? This is the calmest I'd been that entire week. Two Days Later

"…now…whew…now, where was I...HE'S BENDING HIS WRIST!"

Instantly, some one literally tackled the arm of the chair to keep my right ring finger from popping out of its fist. The other six braced themselves, each holding one of my limbs or joints to the plain wooden chair that was nearly splintering from the weight of the half-dozen ghosts piled on it in a little circus of a balancing act.

Speaking of the circus, here's a funny little story about how I ended up in yet another little 'captured by the villain' shtick. You see, apparently there's a freaky little tour bus full of Gothic circus performers. They do major cities, don't speak English very well, and usually end up just doing freaky stunts to amaze the obviously overpaid audience. This can be said for most circuses these days, ever since PEETA made teaching a dog to fetch the paper. Thanks to these new animal treatment laws, instead of watching a guy get mauled by a liger we have to watch a guy wearing too much spandex fit himself into a glass box. Then the box explodes into a cloud of confetti that in turn reforms into a girl in a bikini.

Hey, at least the clowns died off from alcoholism generations ago.

Yesterday, I was skimming the headlines for any updates on the victim or the attacker's state of being in the same intensive care unit. And there was a bank robbery thrown in for filler. Some one actually robbed a bank. A bank protected by a few laser grids, password sequences, DNA scanners and even a kennel of German Shepherds tucked behind the registration desk. They usually have a robotic security guard with an Austrian accent, but he was being refinished at the shop that week.

Manager opened it up at 7AM, opened the safe to find a file and found the thing empty. Even the shelves built into the foundation of the building itself were cleaned out. One of the press releases explained you'd have to either blow out the entire wall and in turn collapse the building. Or reach right through the steel and concrete and help yourself like a trick-or-treater at an unattended doorstep.

Reaching your hand through a solid steel wall…you know, I know a couple guys who do that at parties. So I decided to call them up. Catch up for lost time, then ask 'em who they were hanging with last night. The first three just cried and told me to make them stop hitting themselves. The last one choked out something about a carnival before he blacked out. Turns out he was faking, he scurried off the minute I walked away. Who cares, I got his wallet.

And an unrelated note, I found a 'protection' packet that expired two years before my father was born. No wonder these guys come back from the dead.

And ten minutes later, I got a call from Kirby. Sam had just called her during her study hall period. She asked Kirb' if I'd been sneaking out at night. She honestly wasn't sure what to say. So, Kirby called to ask me what to say while Sam was on the other extension. Eventually some one hit the 'join call' key, and I ended up talking to Sam while seated on the back of this rain-beaten gargoyle overlooking the Asian part of town. Imagine twenty minutes of teacher-style interrogation about what I'd been doing when no one was around. Here's a sample.

"I'm…not…"

"Alan, I know you're not gay. _You're robbing banks_! There's a _difference_!"

The subject eventually changed to something a bit easier to follow. Mind control, ghosts, a guy in a bowler cap, and apparently swapping teenage saliva can counteract pure evil. Whatever happened to Sam just called me every month to ask if I had a girlfriend yet? I liked those days. Before she let me microwave myself 'to death' and spent a week teaching me to run full speed into solid walls before heading back down to Florida to let me spend three months 'developing' my abilities. And coping with the injuries received as I repeatedly tried lifting cars.

This may be shocking to you…but I lack super strength. Either form, I have the same attributes excluding the night vision and neo-Gothic sex appeal that comes with the jacket. Everything I have is just left over from boxing and the training it's built on. I'm not superhuman. I do, however, get tested for performance drugs more often then most fighters. My father had never lifted a weight in his life, and he usually flips the couch over with one hand whenever the remote falls under it. Imagine that, except with a peaked young adult with a weight set and twelve hours of darkness to kill while everyone else is asleep or out at a frat pit.

Speaking of which…again…

Around sunset I took the bike out to a sports arena near that currently confused bank building. I knocked on the door of a black and red bus that was either affiliated with the circus itself, or some felt a mural of piercing-strapped gymnasts and jugglers looks better than those little fish that are apparently engaged in a Holy War.

Then I got pulled inside, and forced into a chair by several green skinned Hot Topic patrons.

What's been going on in the two hours since then?

They're…still trying to get me into the chair. Hence this unseen speaker yelling for some one to tackle my wrist before I stand up again. Seven varied sizes of very obvious ghosts were having the time of their afterlife just trying to keep from flying off. A few minutes after my hand was secured, the voice restarted for the fifth time.

"…like…I was…saying…Oh, forget it!"

The dimly lighted area around the hair was entered by what looked like a woman wearing a pinstriped black suit with tails, high-heeled boots that showed off the thin-ness of her legs, and a top hat pulled down so I couldn't see past her chin. Complete with grey grime splotching the black cloth for a truly aged and battered look. She then looked up under the hat's trademark brim, revealing a dark colored patch of hair under her lip and some equally light peach fuzz blemishing the paleness of…his…face. He had both pencil-tick arms behind his back as he scowled at me with every pale muscle in his face, gritting yellowed teeth.

"I'm the ringmaster. I control ghosts, it's a family thing, and now we're doing crime. Don't try to stop us, no matter which force of good sent you."

…all said in a frustrated monotone. I raised an eyebrow, getting a wheeze of exhaustion from the midget that had been perched on my head holding it down in the first place.

"…that was…very…Spartan."

The other eyebrow raised, toppling the poor little freak off behind the chair as I asked.

"Okay…now, why did you pull me in here again?"

The…_man_…pulled one spidery hand from behind his back and adjusted the pale grey braid dangling against his belt. He didn't move his rounded face.

"…um…you're a cop, right?"

Slowly, I narrowed my eyes back into glare as the two…girls…holding my elbows managed to contort themselves around the chair legs to put their apparently rubber spines into it.

"…actually…I'm with the arena parking division…you guys are double parked, and five spaces too close to a handicap ramp."

The muscle-bound giant who was pinning my lower legs and anchoring one of the gymnast's arms, grunted to himself. These guys didn't talk much. I think the guy with the spiky nose-hair cursed or something when I flipped him off my fore-arm a good half hour back.

Their plainly stated leader just slowly returned the arm behind him, taking deep breaths.

"You're…a parking guy?"

I nodded, sending a guy with a snake sticking out of his lingerie crashing down onto the dazed dwarf behind the chair.

"Yeah. I was yelling that when you first grabbed me. So, how about you let me go and I find a nice bar to forget all this in?"

Suddenly, that genderless face was a foot away and spitting.

"PARKING GUY?"

Then he spun on one screechy heel and started pacing wildly.

"Cops! Professional liars! Sure, send the blue-eyed, really damn jacked guy in! He'll blend right in!"

That reminds me. I hadn't gone ghost. Hadn't felt the need to.

He disappeared out of the circle of light, leaving me alone in the chair. With five ghosts wrapped around my figure, but you get the point. Soon, the sound of scraping metal on cheap carpet. I glanced around and guessed this was just the main room of their bus. They probably just pushed the bean bags out of the way and cut the lights. Real scary.

Call me crazy…but I don't think this guy does this every weekend of the month. A few long seconds of high-pitched grunting and screeching later, and the guy in the tails had pulled out something into the circle covered with a patched canvas tarp. I just rolled my eyes, thankfully not dislodging anyone this time. He took his time catching his breath, leaning against the covered object which was about his frail size.

"Whew…Oh God…Geez…"

I managed not to laugh. He then began. Again.

"This…"

He waved a limp wrist at what he was slumped against.

"…is how we treat those who oppose us!"

…who's 'us'? He grabbed the edge of the tarp, slowly moving behind it and out of sight from where Isat. He went on.

"Any _human_ who views their reflection of this lens…"

Oh, this'll be good…

"Will see their truly…worst fear, so to speak…! THEIR TRUE SELV-…whew…geez, I need to get a treadmill…"

Stop laughing at my impending torture. I mean it. No giggling.

Honestly. Who is this guy/gal? I get thrown in here, takes them two hours to find me a chair, then when he finds out I'm a 'civilian' he brings out the big evil mirror that should have stayed in the cartoons. This is worse than that time Desiree set that restaurant on fire because of…eh…'cramps' or something? And what the heck was she talking about? A sore foot is enough to go psychotic over?

Before that little rusty hamster wheel in my head started to compute 'cramps' as something other than common muscle pain, the little fruit of a villain stepped behind his cliché of all clichés and pulled the tarp from behind. As the dust-smoking blanket swept off into the shadows, I just muttered under my breath.

"This _better_ kill me. Or at least be better than that last Friday the Thirteenth episode…"

I soon found myself looking straight ahead of the chair, at a bronze-framed mirror about the size of a doorway was revealed under the tarp. If anyone but that guy with the top hat had tried this, I would have at least averted my eyes. C'mon, seeing your true colors in a supposedly magic mirror is a bit taboo.

No, I just prepared to laugh and looked right into the damn thing.

First impressions? This was, indeed, a somewhat real deal. Reflected in the glass was the light-washed image of myself and the chair I was being pressed into. But the entire theater company of ghosts holding me into it were nowhere to be seen. Must be a humans-only thing.

So, what'd I see? Was it the frail, twitching physique of my youth? An elderly and broken man with the same sad eyes I saw in my own bathroom mirror every day? Something with red eyes and a tail?

…an…an Ewok?

No. Seated in the chair, his legs stretched out comfortably and crossed at the knee and one arm bent behind his neck, was…well, me. With that cheap tan treatment, neo-rock dye job and that jacket that I only started wearing after something in the Ghost Zone dyed it black.

The Phantom. Slouched over the in the artificial wood chair. Holding my opened cell phone in one hand as his thumb tapped away idly. His striking green eyes were half-open, his brows slumped over them as he just stared at the screen of the phone. Evenautally, his pupils twitched over in my direction and he nodded slightly before glancing back at the phone and instantly opening his mouth in a sudden and silent curse. His posture snapped straight back into the chair as he raised the phone to his face, his other hand unfolding from behind his back to steady it as his thumb went into overdrive.

…he was…playing that little game Kirby downloaded on my phone. With the cars going by next to a river. And the frog. I'll never admit this to another human being. But I've spent entire nocturnal evenings getting that stupid fly power-up so I can spell out 'DAF', my initials, on the high score screen that serves no purpose on a personally owned cell phone.

…this is my true identity? My worst fear? The fear I've been dodging all my life? I'm…a half-ghost who likes old arcade games? Oh my God…oh, God, how could you do this to me? Why? Why, Merciful God, did you curse me so!

Speaking of God, I just want to thank Him/Her for letting me contain my laughter as the ringmaster asked from behind the mirror.

"…you going insane, yet?"

I didn't answer. Too busy biting my lip and trying not to cry.

"Yoo-hoo? Parking guy? Did it work?"

As the sound of his boot tapping behind the mirror. I managed to pry my eyes off my time-killing-alter-ego as I glanced at each of the silent and unmoving human oddities holding my limbs. I glanced around the poorly lit room, calculating how big it was before listening for where the rather loud air conditioning noises were coming from.

Eventually, the top hat strutting man stepped out from behind his treasure and walked back into the circle of light with a yellowed grin. He got a few steps in before my carefully aimed and trajectory-calculated wad of spit hit him square between the eyes. I proclaimed as his bony hands shot to his face.

"Buddy? Don't quit your day job. You suck. I'm sorry, but that's the only way one can word it."

As he screamed out his realization of what had seeped into his eyes, I tensed my arms and in milliseconds was hovering a good five feet in the air with my freshly formed bangs still shimmering green for a second as I stared down at the leader to see his reaction.

…he was rolling around on his side, clutching his eyes and screaming high-pitched requests to call 911. Rolling like a dropped needle next to him, was something he must have been holding behind his back. I personally thought it was an old walking stick, but some may give it a fancy name. It was some kind of dark oak, very fine carved to match the Gothic theme of the day.

And emanating from the top of the handhold, was a baseball-sized crystalline orb. Glowing a fiery shade of crimson that reminded me of those glass balls of static energy that Kerri had on her shelf until she got her tongue stuck to it last winter when the heating system died and the twins got bored without the satellite VR-TV. And Sherri got mildly electrocuted helping remove it, she was so busy laughing she didn't see that table leg coming at her at two miles per hour.

And it was covered in a terribly intricate system of cracks on every square inch of it. The tiny seams were filled with a yellowed substance that I recognized as industrial poster paint.

Kerri…um…got hungry during art class. The phone operator of the local poison control center came to my graduation, real family friend.

I took a glance down at the crooked semi-circle of currently dazed and entangled green bodies that had nearly bounced off the tight walls when I busted out from under them. Then back at the crystal. Dazed freaks. Crystal. Freaks. Crystal. Pansy screaming that he his eyes had caught fire. Crystal. Freaks…Crystal…Pansy…Crystal…?

So, I wound my pitching arm back and flung a small flaming ball that matched my eye color at the cowering and convulsing figure of the ringmaster.

When the thing got an inch from his human…and very human, flammable torso, I caught myself and quickly yanked m fist back as if jerking a string. The emerald fire ball was ripped off course, coasting around him like it took a detour before landing right on the crystal-cane beside him.

This is why pencils have erasers, and why Halfas can control ecto-energy like those little koosh-balls on elastic bands that they sell at tourist traps and end up in the trash outside the tourist parking lot.

As the apparently refurbished crystal shattered in a nice little light show, spraying glass shards and pieces of scotch tape into the air before the debris was sucked back into the core of the red light and left behind a scorched cane smoking on the carpet.

Oh…it was the _crystal…_I just, got that….

One Hour Later

I managed not to inch away into the padded booth I was seated in as she moved her face another centimeter closer to my exposed bicep.

I'll try to explain this, and make you understand I'm not involved in an XXX paranormal photography website done all in night-vision. That tour bus was actually very cozy when you turned the lights on and spread out the furniture. All done in silver and black trim, but decorated in a neo-retro Formica tragedy that my grandmother would have loved. I was currently in the window seat of the folding dinner area, hunched over in the convertible booth/bed as a green-skinned young woman with a lightbulb sized ring through her nose had her featureless red eyes an inch from where I'd just pulled up the sleeve of my tee shirt. To ease the awkwardness, I glanced around the bus to see what the other performers were doing.

The gymnasts, or whatever they were, were all spread out in strange positions around a steel box they'd dragged out of a wall compartment. They were emptying it of the dazzling and plentiful jewelry filling it, stacking each piece into a pile to return to a different bank. That 'Midget-American' or whatever they want to be called was digging through an old duffel bag looking for bank statements. The rest of them were in the sleeping quarters in the back, and for some reason I wasn't willing to look past the curtain at how these guys decorated their pillows.

I turned my head back to the window, finding a deep green face splotched with sterling silver and to dead, blood-colored eyes. I didn't bat an eye as she rasped, her moist breath landing on the side of my neck.

"It's just blue Sharpie…"

Ignoring the horror movie cliché that this had turned into, I lightly snorted and glared down at my exposed upper arm. Right above the nearly invisible tan-line that had formed in the last week, was Ember's sapphire signature. Just as she'd carved it on nearly a week ago, every outline and shade the exact same after so many showers and even a couple electrical burns I'd tried to remove it with.

"_Sharpie? _I'm a freakin' club fighter! Ten gallons of sweat a day, and it hasn't even smudged!"

She didn't a pore. I imagine if she _did_ try showing emotion, it'd rip out one of those piercings. She hissed back at me, like a very cordial cobra.

"…Kiddo…I ran a tattoo parlor for fifteen years…getting hit by a bus didn't kill my touch."

She tapped a razor-sharp nail against the stylized E on my tricep, drawing a drop of red blood. I'd switched back just to ask her opinion on this after seeing she was obviously an authority on the subject.

…at least I think it was a she…

"It's the dye. Blue marker ink can stain the pores when they excrete…did she put this on right before you broke a sweat?"

I glared, right into the frowning face of a freak-show's leading lady.

"…what makes you so sure it was a she?"

A blank stare of a frown in return. Slowly, I loosened my features and just shrugged. She nodded slowly, jingling her piercings.

"Figured. Should start to fade in a couple weeks. Just keep showering and try not to sweat too much, maybe skip a couple gym days."

She don't know me too well, do she?

I just thanked her, rolling my sleeve back down as she stalked off to the back of the bus that had just come under new ownership. I glanced out the tinted window to the dark parking lot outside, seeing a flailing figure dash by a street lamp.

We…hadn't actually done anything about that one guy. Sabrina the Teenage Warthog and a guy with fourteen toes on one arm just tossed him out while he was still clutching his eyes. He was still running around out there, tripping every once in a while.

As I walked toward the stair-bound door of the bus, I called over to a young man with both thighs on either side of one ear.

"You guys need any help getting that stuff back, just give me a call."

He nodded his shaven head sideways, I took this as a sign of agreement.

"Keep it clean…um…Guys."

With a two-finger salute and a hop down the steps, I pushed out the front door of the bus and touched down on the same wet concrete I'd been pulled right off of a few hours ago. As I found the bike, automatically up the parking tickets that complained there was no license plate, I eyed the dancing figure of the blinded ringmaster running through the lighted circles of the street lamps. His screams were almost…musical, in a way.

Now that, was a circus I enjoyed.

The Next Morning

If I hadn't had an eye on the digital calendar/clock screen sitting next to my PC monitor, I would have known what day it was when my mattress cried out in pain behind my chair and the flat-screen turned itself on and ended up on a Spanish-speaking network that was renowned for its weekend-morning animation. Without taking my eyes off the keyboard or my fingers off the rubber keys as I finished up a carefully spell-checked letter to Wasp's fa…Tucker, about how his designs for a three-story scented hologram display of floral sculpture were very nice, but this wedding and reception will be taking place in a boxing arena. And to stop calling me and asking if I've gotten around to killing Vlad yet. And no, I don't need a media-enabled wristwatch to remind me when I was scheduled to do so.

All of a sudden…I'm not curious about why Wasp never told me about her parents. Sure, it's ironic that we're connected this closely when we met at a random boxing match, but let's face it. Her mother hunts ghosts. For my first few years at the gym, everyone thought my parents were nature photographers. Then Sporting Illustrations did a side-feature on me.

And her father…who I've just learned was the best friend of my grandfather, is a bit…overbearing and honestly drives the women of the family practically to drink. He's a great guy, judging by that single half hour I had to meet him. But he's either trying to be the father of the bride who barely knows him from his traveling habits. Or trying to get back into the ghost business one afternoon every week, making sure that new kid in the corner office is keeping up with the paperwork.

Oh yeah. Kirby barging into my room to watch Latino cartoons in probably less clothing than that required for me to turn around in my chair.

"…Mornin', Legsy."

A heavily accented grunt. Oh yeah, wait until the commercial break. How could I forget. Ten seconds later, she called out in heavy tongued, half-asleep Spanish.

"_!Buenos Dias¿Usted mira las noticias ayer por la noche?"_

…did I mention how Kirby speaks Spanish? She speaks Spanish. She's probably tri or quad-lingual for all I know, but she speaks English extremely fluently despite it. But she still _thinks_ in her native tongue. And she usually only speaks her natural language before she gets her coffee every day, apparently caffeine could have completed the Tower of Babel. I mumbled back in English, also too tired to switch tongues as we often did.

"Nah. Got back too late to catch it, anything new?"

As the commercial break winded down, she recounted the events of last night's evening newscast. I'll translate.

"You know that one girl? Got attacked at home, molested, roughed up a bit, she's in intensive care downtown?"

…my fingers froze, my typing window breaking into a rapidly growing column of lower case Ts. She continued, assuming I knew or would find out eventually.

"Well, last night they updated her condition. They found a few more injuries, but she'll survive."

My eyes suddenly burned. After eight hours in front of a computer screen. That must have been it.

"…and get this, the guy who probably did it turned up in a gutter last Wednesday. My dad loves when this happens, more work for the lawyers while the cops get to finish off a thermos for a change."

Then the cartoons were back, and so was Kirby's coma. I eventually raised the finger off the keyboard, leaving the screen stained with typos as I stared straight through it. Eventually, I twitched my head side to side, shaking it off as if I'd just meant to sneeze.

I felt a strange sensation on the side of my nose, and looked down to see a tiny dark spot on the faded denim cutoffs I'd pulled on. Slowly, I pressed a fingertip to the bride of my nose before pulling it back and looking at it.

There was a thin wet streak running from the corner of my eye.

Before another commercial break returned bearing Kirby's id, ego and superego I wiped off the evidence of the single tear with a bare wrist before hitting the backspace key and watching the last evidence of my nearly exposed reaction delete itself letter by letter.

By the time I was buried back in writing the letter, my eyes had lost all the redness they'd grown when my cousin had mentioned the little bit of trivia I'd spent nights praying for. Before I buried in the back of my mind and just focused on telling off Tucker with grace, one picture stuck itself behind my forehead.

A prom photo. Of a girl with two gray eyes, that would see the light of day once she recovered from the attack.

No thanks to me. I just got the guy who did it. I didn't even _finish_ the job. All these months of using lethal force on the undead…and I couldn't just land a punch to some sick bastard's windpipe. That's just my life in a nutshell.

The leftover half of it, anyway.

Author's Notes

…I swear…Butch Hartman needs more villains. I've already did an Oprah special on _Ember, _for Pete's sakes, and now I'm down to the half-assed descendent of that circus owner. Most of the actual series' villains are either reformed by now or probably trying to get a lock of Alan's hair for a shrine. Or…eh, Kirby's hair, she's a _real_ celebrity after all. Let's face it. Nobody knows who the heavyweight champ is. But who is Tom Cruise shacking up with this week? Exactly. Read and review, managed to shave a day off my usual update time. Personal best.


	28. Chapter 28

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

(Pre-Note: Well, Hartman hasn't given me any new villain to work with. So this chapter, I decided to try something more reflective and character-based than action and catchphrases. Warning, some minor grit in the dialogue and boxer-mild language. This chapter may come off either as more artistic or more humorous than others. So while I wait for Hartman to throw me some new villains or just make my own, I figured I'd tie up some loose ends dangling off some of the characters. Don't like it? Don't worry, next chapter we'll be back to street fights and motorcycle stunts. And whatever the heck Kirby is. If you say this is just filler, than watch some of these new DP eps. Could've been worse, I could have split Alan and his ghost half for scheduling purposes. )

Punching bags are designed to just hang there and take a beating. Then again, sharpie markers are designed to be carried in a shirt pocket or name-brand sharpie carrying bag. Did the inventor know they'd end up being used for cheap tattoos and hair accessories? If he did, I want to find his grave and break my foot on his sharpie-shaped headstone.

Bags can have more character than the people who hit them. From the moment they're stitched together and stuffed, they begin developing a personality all their own. Maybe the stuffing is an odd blend, maybe it was on the bottom of the pile when they dropped it into the shipping truck. Maybe the guy painting the leather got bored and decided to make it a nicer shade of black than the others. Maybe the woman who stuffed it never had children, so she makes each one as perfect as her children would be. Or maybe it was the first bag made with a new machine that replaced a man who hated his job.

Every single one has a story. So does every boxer. Doesn't matter who or what you are. Canvas, leather, neoprene, black, white, latin, commercially sized, a little forty pound model that swings too much, duct taped or spotless, rich, poor, everyone and every bag has a story to tell.

Let's take one of the many hanging in the barn. I first discovered it years ago, settling in a corner of the second hand store. The guy behind the counter literally paid me to just get it out of his shop.

It had once been a gym bag or an oversized home model. You can tell because of the size, the yellowed tag tucked inside the zipper says it was originally a hundred seventy pounds. Synthetic leather, made in Arizona. The tag says it's navy blue. But after so many years of bright lights and sweat drops bleaching the hide it looks like a rich grey. The stuffing is what ruined it. The shredded fabric and sandbags had gotten wet, and when it dried out it was as soft as a feather pillow at the top and a misshapen rock at the bottom. Who ever owned it, they threw it out after it went sour.

The chains strapped off the top? So rusty they broke off while I was dragging it out of the shop, my bony shoulders straining to carry something that at the time was fifty pounds heavier than me. I half-dragged it onto the train and all the way into the barn, which at that time in my life was just a collapsing wreck my parents wanted to tear down when they found the time.

And in that mold-smelling and secluded wreck of a barn, rain drops slipping in through the barely intact roof, I spent an afternoon trying to fix it. The worthless stuffing was replaced with leather scraps a neighbor had given me in thanks for tracking down his missing dog after my grandmother read me a Sherlock Holmes book to teach me about sounding out letters. The guy told me I was a real private eye at age twelve.

…what's even weirder, is that he thanked me with a bag of torn up cow skin. I don't get it either.

The chains were snapped off completely and replaced with a new set made of cheap leftover titanium coated in rust-proof zinc. I'm sure back in its day, the dated stainless steel links that had held it up were top of the line. Or possibly just competent as a building material.

I then found the only stable beam in the barn and rigged the whole deal up with some old cable left over from when my parents fenced off the property. And so began the career of my first punching bag. The silent training partner and rival I came home to every night after Walt taught me on the by comparison heavenly bags at the gym. But every evening I'd sneak out to the rotting wreck of a farm structure and bruise my knuckles through the ancient pair of punch mitts I'd found in the trash bin of Walt's newly opened office in the back of the gym.

A sob story of a punching bag and a scrawny rich kid pretending to be a boxer in what was once a thriving Amish barn. No wonder my sisters stopped talking to me until they needed something off a high shelf in recent years.

And now, eight endless years later…

The barn has been restored to its old luster, from the squared window frame of the secluded loft to the maze of beams reinforcing the completely rebuilt and redesigned roof. The newly replaced beams and arches now held a small museum of hanging bags and other ancient training apparatus. The once hopelessly rotted and abandoned loft room now held a collection of carelessly stacked guitar cases and obviously second hand but inviting lounge furniture spread out between them. The formerly termite infested walls now framed stylish posters ranging from concert festivals to extra fight promotions I had left over from wallpapering my room.

And in the center of it all, both untouched by time yet a true tribute to it, was the blue-grey heavy bag and the shadow of a boy dancing around it. It was now hung from one of the lower beams by the same steel cord, but now it was the centerpiece of the suspended collection. And as I thoughtlessly weaved through invisible strikes and peppered the falsetto hide with labor-sharpened punches, the leather stuffing rang out with the same muffled taunts it had all those years ago. Uncaring. All-knowing.

Its adoptive owner had gone from a shamed celebrity offspring trying to find a place in the poverty-smelling chambers of boxing as a pale, twitchy featherweight…to one of the fastest heavyweights of the decade with a mentionable forty nine straight record. No losses, no ties, just thirty straight knockouts by ref count and extremely arguable mentions as the best swarmer since…well, the only other boxer in record who stopped at forty nine fights. Also undefeated, and a swarmer at that. Except he was a pro, technically a cruiserweight, and didn't have an ounce of talent in him to begin with.

Marciano.

And nobody, will ever better than the Rock. That's not what the drama-seeking announcers say. It's what the fighters say. And I'm a fighter. I'm not the next Rocky. That man used every prize check he got to help the community that bore him on their shoulders. I just passed up every check they threw at me because of personal morals, why does a rich kid need money other fighters need to feed their families.

That…is why the announcers called me _the_ amateur. It's just a bad joke. Boxing is boxing, these days even the nobodies and club fighters have sponsorships and commissioned tattoos. Big-time promotion is the only thing that kept boxing alive when things got rough. And then came along this kid who fights like a pro and was brought up by one of the most mentioned trainers and corner-men of the century. And fights for free. Woo. Hoo.

I'm still considered an amateur in the books. But I also have a few professional title belts left over from 'exhibition matches'. You know that one guy who does the car commercials wearing his trunks and title belt? Well, every boxer who watches that commercial knows he handed me that belt in the fifth. C'mon, I mean the guy tried to get me on the ropes. Putting a crowder on the ropes is like putting a rock on the train tracks. You could get your eye knocked out of its socket.

My name in the record books. A Golden Gloves Grand-Slam. The current heavyweight champ of the world slipped the ref a clip full of bills to call no contest after one round with me. Nobody won, but I walked off with less bruises and the crowd yelling for the champ to pass down the belt.

Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. All without becoming well-known outside the boxing world. Never signed an autograph in the middle of a sidewalk, never did a commercial. Just another boxer, not a celebrity like I could have been if I'd become a real Fenton. Just stepping out of the spotlight every time it swooped by.

And now one, of the greatest young prodigies of pugilism is still banging on an old bag he found in a pawn shop the day after some trainer pulled him off the street. Because he was lost downtown. Because his father made him get out of the van and left him there after he said he didn't want to fight ghosts like his sisters. I went all the way. But in the barn, I'd just moved a few feet closer to the ladder.

My father…never mentioned that day again. I came back eventually. But every sports commentator in the area has at one time brought up the concept of trash and treasure with my family name thrown into the mix. My parents were so immersed in grooming the twins as ghost hunters, they never noticed where I went after school. Or where I snuck off to at night. Or where I learned that urban accent. Heck, they never even noticed when Walt took me on a…series of short trips. That sometimes lasted for months straight. But that's another era, a story not worth telling.

They just thought I was in the bathroom.

Well…there was that one time when my dad asked what my uncle and I were doing in the barn on the weekends I was actually around. Actually, he was just trying to get an angle so he could play with the power tools while we drew blueprints.

Did you know you can re-attach an index finger fourteen hours after it comes off? Neither did I.

…and you _wondered_ how this family never picked up on the Phantom/Fenton thing? Honestly?

Kerri's been sneaking out at night to meet up with this farm boy down the block who she thinks is a boy band singer going incognito, Kirby's has an industrial shipping crate of Italian-made jelly beans sitting in the middle of her little living area in the guest room. She got it off the back of a probably stolen truck, and then put a table cloth over it to pass it off as an end table. My mother has been hiding a collection of deer heads, she was an avid bow-hunting enthusiast before she met my father in grad school, inside the double-sided walls of her private office.

I'm not kidding. You press a button. The walls flip from modern feminist in the corporate era world to butch trophy collection complete with mounted antlers and pictures of her sporting green and black face paint with an imported switchblade between her teeth.

And I thought _I_ had identity issues.

Why does she have to hide her old hunting stuff? You see, Fentons are afraid of dead things in general. My mother eventually learned to cope with this loss by being the serious fire-arm enthusiast of the team. Every time my father brings home a new TV for the bathroom of sticks the word Fenton on another coaster, she spends an evening filing down a trigger guard so loose you can undo the safety latch _with your_ _mind! _Actually, she owns the patent on a hand-gun currently being issued to the Marine Corps of three different countries. One of which, actually came close to having a real war.

Once. A decade ago. Someday this era will be known as the 'Boring Age' before the space invaders come down and we actually get to use all the crap this family's been inventing for generations. Sure, we're all about the ghost thing. But some sections of the military can't get enough of the stuff Jack Fenton made in his later years, who would have thought the Fenton-Urinal would end up being used in the space program. Besides Jack Fenton.

Let's to a roll call. My father and Kerri are idiots. My mother is a gun-obsessed feminist who is also posing as a white girl. Sherri is a paranoid who keeps looking under beds for paparazzi that don't exist and for ectoplasm traces that are probably not that paranormal. I'm the freak consequence of putting a dimmer switch inside a hellish gateway to the realm of the undead. Kirby is the only soloist on the top 100 chart who plays an instrument while wearing clothes. I haven't even _seen_ the dog in two months. I think he ran off to join the circus and be with normal people. Or, he's just sleeping behind the couch. Either way, I forget what color he is. I think black or white, one of those.

It was somewhere around noon. But it was also dark outside from the blanket of storm clouds, and the sheets of rain cracking off the carefully waterproofed roof had promised me some time alone while everyone else on the Fenton Ranch curled up in electric blankets and argued over which kind of fat-free popcorn to microwave. As long as my father was around to handle the high shelves, I was home free.

So of course, the doors banged open and Kirby skipped in drenched to the skin in freezing rain balancing a dripping guitar case over her shoulders. After slamming the doors behind her before the rain washed in, she pulled back the hood of her/my sweatshirt and wrung it out between her hands as she watched me land a final cross into the bag before steadying it with a heavily padded fist and looking over at her with a mildly annoyed expression through the veil of rapidly chilling sweat draped over my form.

She threw back a grin that nearly lit up the shadow-filled barn before dropping the soaked case to the floorboards with a hollow clunk that rang out louder and longer than any of my punches had. As the echoing began to fade, she yipped just loud enough to get another forced echo.

"Nice shirt! It come with the tattoo or did you iron that on?"

My narrowed eyes rolled down to my bare chest s I raised one of my wrists and got a hold on one of the glove-straps with my teeth. After ripping the Velcro off and freeing my right hand I let the glove drop from my mouth to my other upheld wrist.

"Maybe if you stopped Soviet-purging my closet I'd have a shirt to put on."

Another echoing yip of a laugh, I walked over to the folding card table and tossed the glove onto it as I took the other off felt around my linen-bandaged fist for the end loop of the handwraps. Her sandaled footsteps flopped a few times behind me, followed by a tooth-worn fingernail tapping me between the shoulder blades and making my fingers freeze as they pulled the loop off my thumb. I quickly recovered, simply telling myself that the young woman tracing my tattoo with her fingertip was just a mentally handicapped relative.

"What's with the retainer?"

I was suddenly aware of the thin layer of plastic encasing my upper teeth. As I dropped the sweat-soaked loops of fabric onto the table I dragged my tongue along the roof of my mouth and spat the clear mold into my hand before dropping it in a frequently sterilized container on the edge of the table. I explained it to my cousin as her head appeared over my left shoulder with her chin and throat stretched around the curve of my shoulder. I swear, give this girl some earmuffs and a belt-clip tail, she could be part cat.

"Mouth guard. The old guy had me wear one whenever I could, got me used to breathing in the ring."

As I wiped my newly freed and twitching hands off with a cold towel, my second head asked.

"Why you still wearing one?"

I managed not to sigh.

"Why do females need an entire support group to go into the bathroom?"

I shrugged her head off my shoulder as she sighed through the corner of her mouth.

"_Soy seria."_

"So am I."

I sidestepped away from the table and my cousin and walked over to the doors. I then swung one open and stepped out into the thundering storm, stepping back in a few seconds later wringing out my cutoffs and shaking the tiny pieces of frozen rain out of my hair as Kirby crowed from the middle of the loft ladder.

"Beats bathing like a homo sapien, huh?"

I just grunted, shaking more ice out of my hair as I dried off with that towel from the card table. Was that extremely cold? Compared to the morning showers of my youth when the three female members of the family used every ounce of hot water before I woke? Not very. And with all the harsh chemicals in the atmosphere and precipitation, I'm pretty sure there's enough cleaning agents in the rain to skip shampoo and body wash. And I'm lazy.

"This your day off?"

Without asking for more details or a sensible question to begin with, I muttered while concentrating on wrapping the towel around my neck.

"Ghosts hate rain. When you're…_'phased_'…the droplets go right through you. It's like a swarm of mosquitoes, stings like 'eck."

To thank me for answering her question, she flipped herself around a wooden rung and landed on her feet in the loft. Her high-school gymnast friends used to take bets on when she gets herself killed. She's been out of school for two years, and I don't think anyone ever won the pool. She got a few scholarship offers, even with her negative grade point average, but she considers advanced gymnastics to be a lost hobby. She also considers that black belt to be a fashion accessory. I honestly thing she just put all her talents into a hat and pulled out music.

All that potential, wasted on Kirby. I thought sidekicks were designed to make the main character look better by comparison. All I did was let my hand slip through a defective vending machine. Instant stalker. Don't most sidekicks pop in after circus accidents or botched cloning projects? Or when the readers get tired of the hero talking to himself endlessly like a rambling idiot? As a guitar case was creaked open and a set of strings was plucked, there was a double clang of a time bell. I snatched my phone from the table, flipping it open against my dropping ear.

"Yeah?"

Gobbling chatter. My brow dropped like a stone.

"Um…now?"

It was like being cussed out by a turkey. Even though it was just a phone call, I began rubbing my neck.

"Actually, my family is doing a…"

Gobble-gobble, I winced.

"I mean a…"

Gobble…gobble-gobble you son of a gobble!

"Uh…yes Mrs…Gray, I mean Foley…"

_Gobble_…

"Gray. Be right up, Val."

My defense to the violent gobbling was just snapping the phone shut and slipping it into my soaked denim shorts. With slumped shoulders, I let my head hang and called up to the loft.

"Kirb'? My assistant manager just called, gotta' do a stock room check."

She expressed her sympathy with a soothing folk riff.

"Just stay out of my closet."

With a half-hearted snap between two wet fingers, my mostly exposed and soaked form was dried and wrapped in the by the black threads I sometimes thought of as a second skin. Running three fingers through the now extended bangs like a comb, I let myself fade into nothing and shot off at a shallow angle through the wall that faced the direction of the city.

And I spent the entire flight cursing about how much I hated every single rain drop that went through me.

It stings. It just does.

Eighty minutes later.

She cracked her wrist like a whip to slap me again. I just let my chin move an inch to the right, not even blinking as her calloused palm crossed my face for the fifth time. I kept my arms crossed over my chest, calmly staring into the ashen inferno of the woman standing before me. She slapped my face an inch back to the left, not caring that I visually didn't even feel it. That scratchy growl of a voice, I don't think shed stopped to breathe since I'd appeared noiselessly behind her chair in her gutted warehouse of a lab. I was starting to regret coughing to let her know I was there in the first place.

"…_stupid, stupid, just asking for…!"_

Another slap, which stifled the light yawn I had failed to hold back.

Valerie Wilma Gray, E.H.D, was not having a good day. She was dressed in a red blazer with black slacks, kind of like the night I first met her. And ironically enough, she was practically foaming at the mouth and standing on a step-stool shed dragged over so she could chew me out eye to eye.

She skimmed over that one headline last week. Girl attacked in apartment. Not in the best shape of her life. Attacker turned up on the front doorstep of his next target, currently relying on life support until his condition stabilizes enough to be put on trial. The DNA test sealed the deal. First thing he saw when they pried his eyes open was a shiny gold badge. Do you have to give a guy with his jaw wired shut the right to remain silent? I think you do.

Oh yeah. A ten-block secure and search maneuver couldn't find the guy who did it. The next day, Wasp came over with some laundry for Tucker to do and she mentioned I hadn't been at the gym with Kirby that day. Thanks a lot, Wasp. Maybe if I ever get a word I'll mention that thing in the lab…Geez, can't a guy walk out of a dimensional gateway without seeing his two best friends…yeah…?

Okay, I found out later they never even got that far. But I'm still keeping it under the table for next blackmail season. Make me deal with the jerky florists, will ya'…oh yeah, Val tearing me a new one. Man, I have to stop zoning out like that.

Now she was leaning forward on the top step of the ladder, her finger digging into my chest as she screamed into my nostrils.

"_...and the BIKE! It's still under my license! They trace the tire tracks…!"_

Ahem.

"…I _flew_…"

She was starting to lose her breath. After ten minutes of nonstop screaming. Man, and I used to wonder where Wasp got her stamina from with Tucker for a father. Well, actually that would explain a lot. Val's physical abilities. Tucker's off-color sense of humor. A psychotic fusion of their speaking habits.

How did those two end up sharing a house in the first place? Seriously. Danny and Sam, I admit was semi-possible. I mean, I exist after all. But…Tucker? With a woman? _This _woman?

She's gritting her teeth again. Three…two…one.

"…_you fight GHOSTS! GHOSTS! Playing superhero is going to get you killed, you stupid punk!"_

…and she stopped. Her reddened caramel face an inch from mine, her ragged pants blowing past my cracked lips, her finger buried in my chest holding her up as she stayed balanced on the step-stool. A minute of my sharpened-green eyes blankly smothering her fiery teal ones.

"…you done?"

With a roll of her eyes, her dread-locked head slumped against my neck.

"…_yeah, _yeah…"

I snuck an arm behind her back, lifting the collar of her blazer and lowering her to her feet next to the steel step-ladder.

"…you called me over here…to tear me up for catching that guy?"

Her arm shot out to the nearest stainless table, leaning over it to catch her breath. This was my only chance to get a word in, she'd be up and yelling again within a minute.

As she panted, gently cursing under her breath, I reached into my now slightly ruffled jacket and felt into the inside pocket. Her head was hung over the reflective tabletop, so I just slid the stack of card-printed photographs right under her nose. She stopped panting. She stopped everything the moment she saw the color picture-scan on the top of the creased pile. I leaned down near her right ear, managing to hold back the phantom-rasp.

"_This_…is what she looked like when they found her…"

I reached under her frozen eyes, slowly flipping each photograph off the pile so she could see each one in turn. As the last slid across the chrome tabletop, she'd recovered. But instead of hopping back on the stool and going after my nationality, she just kept staring at the pictures. Looking at her from the side, her profile showed her age. This woman went to school with my grandmother. She'd taken good care of herself. You could barely see the web of lines stemming from each eye, she wasn't as well preserved as Sam but I couldn't pin an age on her.

Wasp has been twenty five for a few years now, if her immaturity fooled you.

I went on. To the empty lab and its statue of an owner.

"…I was _there_..."

She kept staring at the piece of chrome where the pictures had been.

"…in the emergency room…I was there."

She hadn't moved. I didn't see her mouth move, but she shot back in the same tone.

"I…don't…"

"_Listen_…I was there. Invisibility came in the complimentary fruit basket that portal gave me. No one noticed, what with calling her time of death and all."

In a flash, she was standing again before me. But this time, her sharp eyes had dulled from what she'd just seen. More like a well kept kitchen knife than a machete.

"…_time of death_? She's alive!"

Well, some one watches the news. I bet she even subscribes to a newspaper.

With my arms still crossed and my burnt orange features frozen behind aloof mask, I corrected.

"…they lost her for two and a half minutes. They managed to bring her back…but she hasn't woken up yet."

Without bothering to wait around for her reaction, I turned to look at the painted stairwell set into the lab wall. I could hear rapid clicking and muffled footsteps echoing off it, that new dog of theirs is having an overly playful phase.

This was how 'Phantom', or whatever my other half calls itself, deals with confrontations. Treating them like elevator conversation.

I first started doing it to try and keep my lack of experience a secret. Six months later, and it's like I have a leather-clad miniature demon camping out on my shoulder all the time. Muttering harsh comebacks and observations to nobody but himself. Myself. I mean myself, all this false sarcasm is just second nature by now. He wasn't another personality. He was just a bunch of Clint Eastwood movies I found in the basement. And denial is a major river in Egypt that flooded twice a year until that dam was constructed in the 1970s.

That guttural but slightly feminine voice again. Sore from the yelling, probably.

"How…how'd you find the guy?"

I spotted a table full of empty test tubes being cleaned. I shuffled over casually, leaning down to examine an oddly shaped beaker as I rattled on.

"They didn't let any cops near her while she was still awake. She was rambling about what happened before she blacked out. The nurses remembered some of what she said and relayed it. But enough of it."

Hard-soled shoes clicking behind my back as I carefully picked up a tinted beaker and held it up to the gray but slightly glowing window set into the far wall. She asked, standing right behind me by now.

"And you just went in like Rambo. Real smart."

The beaker nearly snapped in my hands. With a suddenly vein-lined fist I set it back onto the drying towel and muttered over my shoulder.

"…don't, start on…"

A small hand jerked the shoulder of my jacket around with surprising force, and suddenly my neck was bent down a foot and those eyes were squared off with mine again. Her pupils, the only part of her I could see clearly, narrowed.

"…and you let him _live?"_

One swift jerk of my shoulders and I was pressed back up against the table, staring slack-jawed down at the crimson clad woman who was glaring up at me as if I'd honestly done something wrong. My palms shot up, calling out in a non-rasped and very human yelp.

"Whoa! Whoa…_wha'?"_

Without taking her eyes off me she swung her neck towards the table where the pictures still sat.

"I get the manhandling. I get the detective shit. But then you let that freak live so he can chill in jail until parole throws him out and he's back at it."

She clicked her feet closed to me, crossing her arms the same manner I had. Don't even start with the 'How does it feel?' cracks. Soon she had the front of her blazer against the jacket's open zipper, loving how eye contact made me sweat. I could feel my color draining under the tan as she said straight into my chin.

"You know what your ecto-blasts can do to a human? Not a ghost. Living, breathing meat and flesh?"

I jerked my head both ways. Her lips tightened.

"…think ignited thermite thrown through a kleenex. You do it right…"

By now, my last bit of cockiness was about as intact as that piece of tissue she just described.

"…and the evidence will burn itself out."

My lungs sucked in sharply, and my arm shot itself between us and sent her stumbling back a few feet. As she caught her balance, she lost it as my face appeared a centimeter away from hers without even seeing me move away from the table. Now driving car number 43, the Phantom.

"I'm still _HUMAN! _And if you even _think_ I'll…"

A muffled click. Just barely louder than a zipper clacking against itself. But the instant I heard it, I was gone. Leaving the off-duty ghost hunter leaning back against the console I'd pinned her to with one arm in front of her and the other jammed into the folds of her blazer. Completely alone.

Her eyes swung around, not seeing a trace of me left except for the shallow breaths I'd scared out of her. Keeping her eyes swinging on the rebound turn, her hand shot out from her blazer lining holding a silver plated side-arm. I instantly recognized it as the same ecto-gun she'd showed me so long ago. The one that belonged to Vlad's second prodigy, with the explosive impact reflex and anti-trace features. I guess she liked it after all.

I managed to keep my breathing to a minimum as she got a good grip on the molded steel grip, tapping the trigger with a manicured nail before spreading her fingers and letting the gun spin on her thumb. She caught it again, still scanning the room furiously with her eyes, holding the barrel into her palm while the handle was extended toward the ceiling. She then held it slightly higher, yelling out loud enough for the more hidden corners of the lab to hear.

"Take it! If you're not man enough to do it yourself, just take…AGGH!"

The very second he said this, I struck. I'd been hanging right over her head, even if I'd been visible she'd forgotten to look up. I swung my loose fist down at the offered gun grip, sending it shuffling and sparking across the unfinished stone floor as her boots were jerked upwards with a violent tug.

By the time she realized she was hanging upside-down over the lab floor high enough that a drop would probably hurt quite a bit, my emerald irises were slicing into her teal ones. More close eye contact. What is this, a romance movie that never made it?

I growled, slowly and precisely.

"…I…am not…a killer…"

I leaned even closer, her nose tapping against my silver bang-curtained forehead.

"And if you ever mention that again…you're gonna' wake up in a cell and not remember how you got there. _Comprende?"_

For a good minute, her pupils just hung there blankly. Then they narrowed again, and what she casually sighed was enough to make me dangle her a bit farther away from my tightened face.

"My kinda' answer…mind putting me down? This is starting to mess my hair."

Once again, my Clint Eastwood face melted into another confused Alan Fenton.

"…what are you…?"

Her answer. Was a sharp piercing sensation right under my right shoulder blade. Before I could yell a curse out into her dangling dreadlocks I felt a wall of concrete slam into my legs. Thankfully, I didn't brace myself so I just slumped into it like a rag-doll with my head buried into my elbow. Through my garbled yell of pain, I heard two hard boot soles tap down next to my ears.

Something shot us right out of the air. And she landed on her feet like a cat. How the heck do these career-orientated women stay in shape at such an age? Is there an aerobics DVD out there that uses basic back-flips and sides-springs to tone up those flabby upper arms?

Yeah. I get a concussion and a few bruised ribs, and I'm making fitness jokes. It's how I deal with massive amounts of pain.

Some brushing sounds echoed in my good ear, she was dusting herself off.

"…just another little test, Pup'. You passed when you turned down the glock, you didn't need to rip me in half!"

…I officially hate everything female and everything resembling a female mind…

"That dart should just be enough to paralyze you for a little…"

I pried my eyes apart just in time to see her trail off in mid-sentence, breaking into a forced grin as she notice I was standing in front of her with somewhat stable posture on two unequally straightened legs. In my left fist was the tiny red dart I'd just ripped out of my actual back, a tiny square of leather was still wrapped around the edge of the otherwise glowing green tip.

"…or…just, hurt like hell…"

Stumbling a few feet over to some random and probably pointless piece of lab machinery, I propped myself up on one arm and panted with a suddenly dry throat.

"…who…"

Still grinning away her miscalculation, she cocked a red-nailed finger behind me. Slowly, I turned myself around and narrowed my already half-open eyes at the person who'd jumped in from the stairway when Val flashed that hand signal.

_Wasp_.

Wasp. Dressed in a rag-top gym shirt and bleached cutoffs that showed off too much of her sweat-cut physique, and staring at her mother and I with wide green eyes and a jaw hanging so low I could count six gold fillings. I let my eyes drop, glaring at the red-chrome crossbow gimmick that had been dropped to the floor in front of her. Matched the dart. For a second she just stared across the entire lab, probably at my broken fork before she thrust one finger straight at her obvious mother. Now that they're in the same room finally, there's quite a bit of a resemblance.

Wasp screamed, loud enough for the homeless folks downtown to hear.

"YOU SAID THIS WAS A DIRTY BUSINESS DEAL!"

…And Val just walked past my barely standing form, throwing her arms to her sides and shrugging as I stared in confusion and regressed exhaustion.

"What do you think _this _is? You said you'd help…"

Her daughter, stomping across the lab at a slightly more serious pace.

"_Mom_! I said I'd be there if the guy got rough!"

As they finally met next to the loading ramp of the currently disabled ghost portal, the ashen-skinned boxer thrust another finger in my direction.

"Who…what the heck is THAT!"

She shoved her mother aside, who just kept her palms up mock-surrendering as Wasp/Wilma stomped right over to where I was slumped over that random piece of machinery. She kept ranting to herself in that painfully 'ghetto' drawl.

"All these years you tell me you're a 'nature photographer'! Then you go and mess with this…!"

Her heel froze an inch from the concrete. She'd looked at me with a tilted head and a lowered eyebrow, only to freeze completely. I just looked back at her from under my bangs, breathing through my somehow sandy dry mouth as I clutched the throbbing puncture wound she'd given me. Eventually her foot fell beside her other one, standing there with her fists down at her sides and her head tilted even farther to the left before she slowly turned to look over her barely exposed shoulder.

Val was filing her nails right next to the portal. This was just another work day for her. Her near-identical daughter snapped her head corn-rowed back around with saucer-sized eyes and practically sprinted up to where I struggled to breathe. If that wasn't a big enough clue, she had to yell out.

"…'_FENT_!"

Before I slowly could raise an arm to stop her, she more or less pounced me and slammed my gently back against the console. Her rounded, artfully darkened face just stared down at my burnt one as she mouthed something I couldn't make out. Ignoring the fact my ears still worked, she screamed out the side of her mouth toward Val.

"You had me shoot_ Alan?_ What did you _do_ to him!"

As she grabbed my chin, examining my slightly glassy eyes with pure puzzlement as Valerie just called back in a monotone.

"Me? More like Jack Fenton. I was just keeping him on track."

Ignoring this, Wasp leaned close to my hanging head and half whispered, half demanded.

"…Alan! Can you breathe?"

I managed to weakly grunt. That dart managed to knock me out of commission with a partial injection. Imagine if I hadn't pulled it out.

She shifted her weight off of me slightly.

"Do you need a doctor?"

I managed to let my head swing sideways. She looked doubtful. This was the first time I'd ever seen her worried since that time Aron had a rough encounter with that defective mailbox. She went on in the same worried whisper.

"Did…did you call the florist?"

My eyes shot open all the way. Then narrowed back into a respectable glare. She took this as a yes, turning away to yell at her mom some more.

"Thanks for telling me! Just great, you're telling my wedding planner to come to the Dark Side or something! This is why I never take friends home!"

…sounds like _my _family…

She pulled me one of my arms over her shoulders, managing to pull me to my feet despite my having at least six weight classes over her. As she gently walked me over to what somewhat resembled a chair to my blurred vision, she finished.

"What next? Is Daddy going to…?"

…Ironically yet sadly, the unseen Tucker took this opportunity to yell down the stairway.

"Hey! What you ladies up top down there? Baking something?"

Val, putting away her nail file, called back.

"We're just talking to that one Fenton kid, don't get up."

As Wasp eased me into the rolling desk chair, muttering under her breath about my poor taste in hair dyes her father yelled down.

"Which one?"

Val examined her nails.

"The bigger one. With the bike."

Her husband.

"OH! Hey, ask him if his sisters killed Masters yet!"

With that he probably went back to whatever he was wiring, while his wife slowly turned to where I sat with two raised eyebrows and a raised lip. Without even bothering to speak, she asked what the heck her husband just asked me. As Wasp managed to pry herself away from me, I shrugged my good shoulder and mouthed 'Tucker'. She rolled her eyes to herself, letting them rest on her approaching daughter.

"I'll explain later. Wilma, could you watch on your little gym friend? I have to go slap some sense into your father. Gimme' a couple hours."

With a wave and a turn, she was off to the stairway in those freakishly loud boots. Wasp watched her go with a cocked eyebrow before she glanced back over at where I was now rubbing my eyes with my numb right hand. She let her eyes widen again, whistling slowly to herself in the now silent lab.

"…Soo…"

I glanced over with one green eye, covering the other with a green-stained hand. She winced slightly at the intensity of the color, before managing to fake comfort.

"Uh…is this what you been doing lately? Messing around with my mom in a Goth-rock getup?"

Yeah, Wasp. I'm fulfilling Danny's lifetime goal of stealing his best friend's girlfriend. I mean wife. I keep forgetting Tucker could pull that off.

Actually, I just choked out.

"…Kin…da…?"

She nodded slowly, pretending not to be freaked out and confused. Just like that time we hit that thing with Aron's truck back in Illinois and didn't know what it was. She slowly glanced around toward a window, trying to sort all this out as I began to regain feeling in my extremities.

"Hey, the rain stopped."

I slowly twisted my neck to see the rain drops had stopped pounding windows on the east side of the warehouse. I sighed painfully. At least it'd be an easy flight back home. I wasn't exactly fully clothed before I switched forms. I can't exactly take the train back wearing nothing but a pair of cutoffs. And my wallet is probably tucked inside Kirby's neckline right now, that mangy little thief.

And of course. While I was recovering from a drug-induced paralysis and one of my best friends was just finding out about my night-job, some one on the street outside screamed bloody murder.

"STOP HUGGING ME!"

My eyes shot toward the direction it'd came from. Wasp, who had been quietly leaning down behind me and examining my hair and jacket as if I was a weird stray dog, commented.

"…what? Somebody from your paranoid support group?"

With a sharp grunt, I shoved myself upright. I felt her try to ease me back down, I just shrugged it off with my active shoulder and began shuffling slowly towards the wall.

"Alan? What are you doing?"

I stopped dragging my feet, panting for a second before gasping.

"…Klemper…"

"What?"

I didn't look back, bracing my remaining muscles for a shallow take-off as I explained through gritted teeth.

"…gimme' ten minutes…"

Before she could pull me back to the chair, her hand just went right through me as I phased and took off right through the wall. Before I entered the rain-moistened air I distinctively heard her exclaim a surprised curse that I honestly can't force my mouth to repeat.

I'm just that kind of guy.

Seven Point Three Minutes Later

Slumping myself behind the brick corner of the building, I whistled loud enough to be heard and called out in a falsetto voice.

"Hey! Somebody give me a hug over here!"

I then pressed my still-numb and aching back to the bricks, listening for the trap to catch.

Heavy feet trampling the nearby sidewalk. Then a very enthused.

"…Oooooh…."

I heard a snapping sound from around the corner I'd hid behind. Then a metallic clang and hollow echo of my little contraption working semi-perfectly. Eventually I poked my had _through _the street corner to see what the damage was. I would have walked around, but my legs didn't have it in them.

Right in the middle of the abandoned factory back-road outside Val's place, was a dumpster. Just an ordinary city dumpster flipped over onto its rim in the middle of the street with a broken 2x4 lying in two pieces next to it. I stared at it intently, watching as it shook slightly and something trapped inside it bellowed.

"Hey! Somebody turned out the lights!"

I watched a fist-shaped impression appear on the wall of the makeshift cage. Another echoing exclamation.

"…A _friend!"_

And just like that, he quieted down. He could have tossed that thing like a sombrero. I'd rigged up an empty dumpster and piece of particle-board in a classic box and stick trap. And I just put an old teddy bear from some one's trash inside it for bait, he walked right into it. And apparently the bear was incentive enough to keep him occupied. As he quieted down and stopped trying to break out, I nodded to myself and started limping along the wet-brown sidewalk towards the distant doorway of Gray/Foley's apartment stairway.

Two Minutes Later

…and managed to move ten feet without collapsing against the wall again. Too tired to phase or fly. Too drugged up on that dart to walk straight. I hardly noticed the fact there was a dark red sports car parked next to where I was walking, it'd been there for about thirty seconds. When I walked far enough that I was even with the driver's window, some one called out.

"You need a lift?"

I looked over to see Valerie leaning against her steering wheel, looking rather impatient. In the passenger seat, I could make out Wasp's streaked head leaning forward so she could see me.

Still a bit shaky with speaking, I nodded and used the last bit of energy I had to glance around at the empty city block, phase and float myself into the back seat of the probably European convertible and collapse like a corpse into the leather padding. I heard a screeching sound, and the car tore off down the block as I tried to shift my nose out of the seat belt clip. Wasp's surprisingly meek voice drifted past my ears.

"…is…he okay? I mean, he's not making any wisecracks…or…breathing…"

Valerie, concentrating on shaving off a few minutes by running lights.

"Yeah, yeah, he just needs to get it out of his system. Give 'em a day, this punk heals faster than one of your piercings."

Before I let myself drift into something between sleeping and meditating, Wasp asked the pile of neon-green stained leather that was me.

"Hey. This may be a bad time…but…"

Silence as Val slowed down, probably at a speed trap, before charging back up again.

"…Kirby, said Alan was your _middle_ name. That your grandmother got to name you, and your parents didn't like it. What's the deal?"

…oh yeah, it _is _my middle name…and she just took advantage of a tranquilizer victim…I simply grunted into the leather.

"…'Ermen…"

Valerie, hopefully keeping her eyes on the road asked.

"What?"

I turned my head.

"…Sam…named me, I was her first grand-kid…"

I took a deep breath, then gave in to my weakened state and admitted.

"…she named me..._Damian…_My dad, hated it and named me after this little wrench thing he put together a shelf with once."

I then slammed my eyes shut all the way and tried to will whatever was in that dart out of my veins. Wasp's rough snort, obviously amused.

"…what, did we drug him with again?"

Her mother answered, probably smiling.

"…'_Wilma'_? I think he's serious…"

They spent most of that hour's drive laughing, while I 'rested' and planned what to do when I could move my fingers enough to hit them with something.

Author's Notes

Why does Val keep switching angles on Alan? One minute she's planning to waste him. Then gives him the bike to be quiet about it. Now she tests him again to see if he's getting into the wrong business, and drops him off on his porch full of tranq and laughing at his real name. As you can see, I also did a bit on Alan as a boxer. And as a person. Sorry for the filler, review if you want, I'm on the verge of just making some new villains and getting right to them next chapter. On an unrelated note, I'm thinking of touching up the earlier chapters. The first chapter of this needs some work, I admit it.


	29. Chapter 29

DISCLAIMER: See Previous Entries

(Pre-Note: It was a long week, but don't worry, I still have all my extremities. I won't bore/mortify you all with my daily troubles, but I'm proud to say I retired from light-heavyweight kickboxing with a knockout. As in the other guy. I'm serious. Well, now that that's all done with I can focus back on my other combat sports and the amazing woman I limp home to after every match. Well, realistically she comes home from work to find _her_ apartment clean and me passed out over my keyboard, but you get the point. This is why my female characters don't wear aprons and housedresses.I've also been busying myself with trying to salvage the old chapters, both grammar wise and possibly some re-writes regarding simple description and writing style. Don't worry, I'm not going to add new characters to the past events or change any plot points, the most that will change is the series of events in and flavor of the first chapter. The older chapters will somewhat match the new ones. Some mild language and mentions of old family problems, but nothing major this chapter..)

"_Duck_!"

She weaved. Weaved right past a high jab and threaded an uppercut right under it. There was a clatter of synthetic leather tearing into the real deal, followed by a scratchy thud as the jabber hit the canvas. I vaulted right over the ropes I'd been leaning against and landed a few feet from the casualty. I quickly pulled the raw-hide headgear off the gangly welterweight and clicked two fingers in front of each eye as he just grunted at the sprinkler heads hanging over the sparring ring. An extremely thick, Jersey groan.

"…wha' waz it?"

Checking his vitals before propping his tank-topped ribcage against his sunburned knees, I half-heartedly asked what he meant as I went over the usual knockout routine.

"…what wuz' it? A school bus or a Greyhound?"

I sighed through the side of my mouth, resting my hands on my knees as I knelt next to him and slowly looked over where he lay to his other side.

"…I told you to _duck…_"

Crouched down on the other side of the second string welterweight, was the part-time newcomer who'd just knocked him out. Sporting two lime green sparring gloves crossed over her racer-top and a blue-leather framed face. Glazed over with fresh sweat and possible tears streaking down to her lips as she tried to bite them in half, Kirby looked down at the sprawled Bostonian with true if not overacted worry. Her volunteer opponent shook himself off and assured her.

"S'alright, Dawlin'. Helluva' cut there!"

I was quickly shoved back from the downed fighter as Kirby just plain out pounced him with a hug that would have been painful if she hadn't been wearing those huge sparring gloves. By the time she finished apologizing and stopped blocking his airways like a _Cubana_ anaconda, I was impatiently waiting for her on the bench between the locker rooms. As some one tried to play a college fight song on that rusty speed bag in the nearest corner, I just rubbed my eyes while the gym just kept on banging and moving around me like I was an island in a white water river.

I watched the fledgling knockout artist look to her side and see that I was gone. As she flicked her ponytail like a braided whip looking around for me, a hoarse voice coughed next to me.

"You tell her to duck. She knocks him out."

I glanced over to see that sun-wrinkled and chocolate skinned old trainer that had been getting in his share of commentary since first Kirby danced in here and asked him if I he'd seen me around. Then when she started shadowing me and following a beginner's gym routine under my loose supervision, he stepped into a whole new puddle of material.

"Mitch. Don't even start."

He ignored me, scratching his salt-colored goatee and looking over at the sparring ring with feigned admiration. This guy should have been a philosopher with all the junk he pulls out every day. He wheezed, his voice sore from years of yelling and time keeping.

"…you tell her how to walk and talk, and now she's running and cursing left and right."

I let my outstretched thumb and forefinger cover my eyes as his routine caught steam. I let myself slump forward off the bench as he leaned back against the wall comfortably in an ancient warm-up suit bearing the logo the gym had back in the 20s.

"Why, that reminds me of way back when…"

I snapped with a tight jaw.

"Get lost, Old Man."

A neighing laugh, he slapped my shoulder in appreciation as he got up to look at the front desk. He finished.

"Whatever you say, Mr. Astaire."

As his slumped frame shuffled proudly to the front desk, I called after him with my narrowed eyes peeking out from behind the two fingertips.

"Go take your medication!"

He called back without turning, letting it echo off the line of heavy bags as he passed.

"Back 'atcha, Phantom."

I let my brow fall back into my palm as he happily greeted some newcomers carrying camera cases. I just sat there for a while, listening to the singing bags and the almost musical yells and grunts that had been the soundtrack of my days since I wandered in here. Soon enough some one plopped down next to me with a light thump and loudly spat out their mouthpiece.

"Blegh…this thing is starting to go bad or something."

I didn't look up. She leaned closer, resting the rounded profile of her headgear on my shoulder.

"Ya' know…if _you_ could just get in the ring with me once a week…"

I flicked a bang away from my covered eyes.

"Maybe if you just did what I told you to, you wouldn't keep going through partners."

I leaned back and gave her a scanning glance. She was sitting cross-legged next to me with her gloves hanging around her neck and her wrapped hands on her knees. I just had on the short sleeved shirt I'd pulled on that morning and some ragged jeans. I work out at home nowadays, considering what I have to train for. Kirby's the one who's dying to come here all the time. I don't even hit the bags anymore. Every time I even wrap my hands a crowd forms. And of course everyone wants to see me get in the ring with this black-belt turned gymnast turned musician turned boxer. Notice I left out a few curse words. It's this new invention called 'self-control'.

All that talent wasted on a sidekick.

She pulled her gear off, revealing a black and orange bandana wrapped over her scalp with her ponytail slipping out the back like a tail. She watched my eyebrows jump and quickly made herself look like a starving kitten.

"C'mon…just a couple rounds!"

"No."

Sad-kitten eyes Mach 2.

"Please? Just one round, and I'll stop telling people your first name!"

I stood up, dusting some spilled talc off the shoulder of my shirt and turning toward the vending machine set into the wall next to the bench. Without a word, I squared into a loose stance and fired a quick jab into the plexi-mold front. A few seconds later a bottle of water dropped down into my waiting hand. As I cracked the cap with one hand and raised it to my mouth, I explained.

"How about two rounds, you stop throwing around that pizza boy story."

A questioning, but extremely guilty blink. I turned around to face the gym and all moving within it, yelling out without ceremony.

"YO! Anybody know who Mittens has for a biological grandfather?"

A guy and his girlfriend doing focus mitts yelled back from across the gym.

"Pizza guy!"

"Kept' the hat on!"

Two Hispanics dancing around in a ring stopped in mid-punch and yelled at the same time.

"And she blames the daughter because she's evil."

And finally, a trainer who was standing on his boy's back as he did push-ups.

"And her mom is psychic. And takes care of the old hag out of guilt. Did I _tell_ you to stop, Pug?"

He stomped one foot down on the guy's back, squeezing out another repetition as I turned back to where Kirby sat frozen on the bench. I jerked a thumb out at the zoo exhibit of the American boxer.

"…you told that little tale to…well, it was in the newsletter last month."

She grinned nervously, showing her healthy gums in an attempt to distract everyone and run away.

"Uh…it's a…?"

An airborne towel suddenly floated down over her head, and the tattoo-covered guy who threw it commented as he walked into the lockers.

"No. Mitsy, it's just weird."

Pulling the cloth out of her eyes but keeping it draped over her head, she just looked around at the vast sweat-smelling chamber that hadn't really shifted gears since the conversation started. Finishing off the water bottle and sky-hooking it in the direction of the trash, I shrugged one shoulder. The other was still sore two days after that 'uneventful' rainy day.

"Consider this an intervention. We were gonna' jump out of your closet tonight with charts and an addiction counselor, but Sharky is having problems with closets and personal symbolism."

The guy who'd thrown the towel poked his grease-spiked head out of the locker and calmly stated.

"'Fent. That was just one time, and it started out as a frat prank."

I rolled my eyes and waved him off to go change his monthly pair of briefs as Kirby hopped to her feet, swinging her head so the towel floated back down on the bench. Without a word she trudged off into the women's locker hall, inciting a studio audience laugh track from three preteens loitering around the double-end bags. Each was struggling to bounce a ten pound medicine ball higher than the other two could. As one's hand slipped and he instantly clutched his foot in pre-pubescent agony, I threw the towel into a bin and paced toward the fire exit closest to the front street.

When a siren tore by outside and a few guys went to the window to see what was going on, I broke into a quick jog and swung the door open with my good shoulder before turning a corner into the alley and taking a shortcut behind an overturned dumpster. While I ran out from behind it, my suddenly unruly, rebellious hair finished bleaching itself silver. My bangs finished creeping down my forehead like white ivy before softly banging against my brow as I lunged off one foot and launched myself out of the sprint into the open sky over the alley and cutting the corner of the gym to catch up with the streamlined black and white tearing off down the avenue.

Already thinking of how to explain it to Kirby if I came back half-alive.

Twenty Three Minutes Later

Most cops hate one thing more than criminals. Hostages.

I'm not joking around here. One just gets a phone call and a couple meals before you ship them off into another division. The other, requires six full course meals, monitored but pre-paid phones slid through the mail slot, pillows and blankets, and if things really stretch out bathroom kits and newspapers to check their stocks.

And people _wonder_ why the guy never gets the car and private plane out of the country. Odds are, the Feds can't afford the gas money after twelve hours of playing dinner host to a bank and loan full of very frustrated househusbands and gum-popping cashiers.

This particular bank and loan was serving fifteen adults when the guy opened the briefcase on a form counter and pulled out a completely chromed fire arm. Six hours later, the fifteen customers, ten staff members and the four teenagers who'd been loitering in the bathroom were dying of boredom. Took about an hour for it to sink in that the twitchy little criminal in the second hand suit could barely keep his hands from shaking. His first big heist, how cute.

The police perimeter had so much time to set up that the crowd was held back an entire block. And spread out around the marble store front, in layers of two, was the specialized tactical maneuvering unit, looking rather impressive in their body armor but probably sweating themselves to death. I tried a set on at my uncle's once. Every square inch of your body is protected by a molded layer of 'liquid vest' injected Verflex with shock-smothering and glare-absorbing black urethane shell.

…the end result, a Storm-Trooper shaming little number that made a stealth rifle look like a man-purse. And it's very, very itchy. None of the weaponry engineers can explain it. Every little speck of paint on these things are custom-mixed, and the face-shields are handmade by an obsessive compulsive Siamese guy in the back room, but those things make knitted wool feel like whatever pantyhose are made out of.

Not that I'd know how comfortable they are. Or that I don't have the thighs for them.

So, they got the Super-SWAT troopers playing circle games around the sidewalk, three sharpshooters on the rooftops, and the gunman is just sitting on a desk in plain view rocking back and forth while his captives hold a poker tournament with a deck some one found in a drawer. The second sniper, tucked behind a plaza roof-edge with his Giant Gulp sitting next to his radio, just commented that the guy with the hair-plugs has bluffed his way through three games. And he pulled a trey of spades out of his sleeve two hands ago.

And the guy orchestrating it all, or being force to at least, is trying not to yell a curse loud enough for the network microphones two blocks over to hear.

How do I know all this? Invisibility. Intangibility. Flight. Basic deductive skills. The fact these guys are so bored they're planning a bachelor party over the helmet-coms. It's like walking into a dead party, doesn't take long to get the story behind it.

The police chief was juggling all this from underneath a freshly dyed head of black hair that was starting to turn gray all over again from the heat and the stress. He'd made sure there were no cameras around before sitting down on the side-platform of the central deployment cruiser, rubbing his ankles idly. I was sitting cross-legged right next to him, resting my chin on one upheld fist as I kept my breathing limited to whenever the humid wind whistled by. Even if I hadn't been invisible, he probably would just grunt and keep rubbing his sock-lines.

My gaze slowly to the front of the bank. That little twitch was still just sitting there with his unusually shiny gun. Rocking. Back and forth. Back and forth…

If any of those snipers drink their Giant Gulps to fast and get a sugar-seizure, odds are that guy isn't walking out in one piece.

Eventually, I looked down at my transparent lap and concentrated on a particular mental image for a few minutes to combat the boredom. I'd been here since that cruiser carrying the pizza sped by the gym. Where I would have been more entertained arguing about Kirinia's genetic heritage and how she should keep it under her hair-sharpie around company.

Several minutes later, the commander and chief reached up to pat his rapidly fading hair color before turning to the side and raising a grey hedge of an eyebrow at what he saw.

What could easily be a specially-outfitted cop on a lunch break. Jet-black pants and shoes, rather formal jacket pulled over a plain grey shirt. A dark green baseball cap with 'SWAT' plastered on its mesh front with darker green letters and a bright green strip on the front of the jacket reading the dark green label 'LT. PHANTOON'. I slowly looked over, letting him see one eye from under the over-bent hat bill and slowly bobbing my head. He did the same, turning back to the bank front and continuing his ankle rubbing. He coughed, obviously sore from six hours of yelling.

"Who ya' with?"

I grunted back, my mouth still dry from ecto-forming the hat and name-tag.

"Downtown."

He bobbed his head again. I continued, clearing my throat forcefully.

"…heard this guy's packin'. What's with the finish on that thing?"

In cop-talk, this means 'Why is that thing all silver and shiny? Aren't most guns…uh…black and scary-looking?'. He pulled on his curled bangs, spitting out onto the pavement.

"_That_…is possibly an 'antique' particle stick."

He swiveled his thick neck to see me blankly staring over at him. He smiled, showing a gap between an incisor and his left front tooth.

"…Hehe…yeah, that's what all you kids do."

He let go of his ankle, switching legs as he explained.

"Back in the day, energy-based weapons were the big fad. Laser guns just kinda' went with those hover-cars back in the 20s. Cost-efficient. Futuristic. Shiny. Then every idiot who can afford one starts crashing through buildings and killing each other trying to do the 'Greedo Dodge'. Idiots"

…Han Solo moved his head a single freakin' inch to the left to dodge an energy slug…just so Lucas could be a good Buddhist. And then the teenage public had to go and copy it. Good thing society decided to bring back ground transportation. And not exactly as good a thing the crime community preferred bullets over less-than-lethal energy stuns.

And now Twitchy has an old ray-gun that probably isn't even charged all the way. I sighed, shaking my hat at the whole history of the world before stretching out my legs and hopping onto my feet stiffly. I clicked my tongue.

"Well, I'll tell you what. You try out a different stylist next dye job, and I end this here and now."

If this man hadn't spent six hours on and off his feet in the late-summer heat, with sore ankles, he probably would have cuffed me and slammed me into a back seat for saying something unusual.

Instead, he chuckled down at his aching ankles and nodded a few times. He wheezed.

"Sure, sure…all you downtown rookies all got capes and briefs on underneath the blues, with all your talk."

By the time he looked up to squint at me in the sun, I was gone. About fifty yards away, I steadied myself in the air a foot from the tiled ceiling right over the rocking, twitching bank robber as he practically caressed the 'old' weapon. From my invisible and physically nonexistent perch, I could hear the hostages arguing about Mr. Hair-Plugs getting all the good cards. I glanced out the glass front wall at the practically napping SWAT line-up, and the confused form of the chief stepping off the cruiser and looking around for that Downtown Kid.

I stared down at the rocking twitch for a few seconds before loudly whistling. He instantly jerked his sweat-dripping nose up at where I was hover, just in time to see me appear out of thin air and sent my shoe straight into his forehead.

A loud thud and the sound of a chair toppling, and the man had finally stopped twitching as he slumped over on the paperwork island as his gun clattered onto the floor and rolled a few feet toward the hostages' poker circle. I looked up from his obviously surprised form to see the previously statue-like troopers outside stomping full speed towards the single glass door. I snapped myself out of existence with two folded fingertips before swooping right over their heads through the front wall and making a low dive over to the now abandoned deployment-tank where the chief was now standing motionlessly with his eyes on the line of armored backs and one ankle still in his left hand.

He just stood there like that for a short while. Not sure whether to just curse a local God again or to pound out an Irish jig to celebrate the end of it all. He spun on his remaining heel, dropping the other loudly to the concrete as he realized I'd been standing behind him. He went with his first impulse and cursed as he saw my now bare head of silver hair peering down at his slouched frame. His eyes first locked on my impossibly green eyes, then the tiny orange smirk I was flashing him as I pulled a small golden card out of my jacket with one hand. He stood there without breathing as I reached over and patted the card into his front pocket, commenting off-handedly.

"It's a good salon. Just don't get the owner to do the coloring."

I pulled the burnt-tanned hand back and snapped two fingers back at my snow white bangs as they tried to cover one of my eyes. My 'Ecto-Hair' isn't uneven, technically. My bangs just shift sides depending on if I'm standing upwind or downwind.

"…Lemme' put it this way. I asked for blonde highlights, I walked out like _this."_

Okay, that was just stretching the gag. But my aunt does in fact have a learning disability when it comes to hair color. She's a true master of layering and crease patterns, even beads and braided Sharpie holders, but don't trust her with even some diluted wash-off bleach.

With a silent crack of a wink and a single round from a cocked thumb and forefinger, I simply faded out as another hot wind tore by. As I leapt up silently and let it carry me over the city's blocky skyline, the Chief cursed again to no one but himself as the now-awakened SWATs pounced the 'Twitch with everything they had. That same rather tame curse. I don't think it would even count in a Catholic confession, it was so common a word. But at that single moment, it was the only thing on his up-sided mind.

Could you really blame the poor guy?

Two Hours Later

I eased the phone slightly off the curve of my ear, carefully repositioning my crossed legs before asking the question again.

"…_game night?"_

My location managed to give my phone a good enough reception that the soprano voice rang out clearly through the cracked speaker.

"Yeah. Your mom said it's a tradition, and we have to be around for it."

I rolled my eyes, blowing a silver bang off my nose and sighing.

"Game night…is just something the Fentons do when they have company. Makes us look like a family."

Kirby grunted musically.

"_Ohh_…fun! Hey, where are you?"

With both eyes twisted over at the dated pixel-color screen of the phone, I inquired.

"Whaddaya' mean?"

She called out over the clicking buttons.

"I took the train back ALONE. Either you ditched me, or you're embarrassed and just playing Casper again."

…you just decide to keep a low profile while your cousin drags you through a girly department store _once, _and all of a sudden you have to mark it on your job application. I stuttered.

"Uhh…bank robbery…hostages…laser guns…1-UP Fly…SWAT team…"

Nothing but the soft clicking of the numerical pad. Slowly, she demanded.

"…you're sitting on that stupid gargoyle playing Frog-Quest, aren't you? _Again_?"

…NO! I was _laying_ on the thing's back, and toying around with the high score screen on my phone, I'd gotten tired of _playing_ two minutes before she called. I was also suspended fourteen stories in the air, inches away from just rolling off the rain-smoothed crouching dragon to the central intersection honking and accelerating by underneath the protruding statue's neck. I slowly finished tapping the lower-case F before just gritting my teeth.

"…Sooo…game night…did anyone say who was coming?"

If it was Tucker, I could only pray Val's puppet show struck home and he understood who wore the ectoplasmic jacket in this family. Last week when he showed up at a fund raiser, he kept snapping pictures of my sisters with his watch and photo-shopping the pictures during dinner to see what they'd look like after a horribly twisted tanning session and enough invisible paparazzi sightings to turn their hair white. Or black. Their brunnete dye-jobs are starting to fade, if you squint real you can kinda 'picture them as quarter-hispanics. Almost. Am I not just a nervous white guy after all?

The familiar sound of a jellybean being drawn and quartered against Kirby's front teeth.

"_Nada. _They just keep telling me to wear a shirt."

Oh, that saves me an entire lecture on human decency and affordable tattoo removal.

"Figures. Tell 'em I'm out getting the bike fixed, I'll be out late."

A muffled gulp. God speed, lone jellybean.

"…the bike…is parked next to the barn. Your dad is trying to move it closer to the other cars."

I shot up into a reclining position, my eyes burning into the brick wall the statue was mounted against.

"He touched the bike?"

"_Touching_ the bike. I think he's trying to start it. He found a spare key under the couch."

…and another prime hiding place bites the dust…

I swiped a dark hand through my hair, jerking my head around to look out at the fading daylight over the skyline. I tried to calculate what time it was by the color of the sun. I had a data screen on my phone, and I was looking into the sun to tell time. Fenton blood, I tell you.

"Sonuva'…okaay…walk out there and tell him Kerri hit her head on something. That should keep him away from her until I get back.

A rather un-lady-like snort sounded through my crackling speaker as I stood up and balanced both feet on the rounded neck of the ancient gargoyle.

"…_away from her?_ Doesn't he always flip out when the girls get hurt?"

I braced myself into a loose crouch as I eyed the horizon. I corrected her before snapping the phone shut and killing the call.

"…I meant the _bike_..."

Tossing the folded phone into the flap of my jacket and turning both toes to one side of the cracking concrete dragon, I took a slow breath before letting myself fall forward off the neck like I was falling onto a couch. I just free-fell for a couple hundred feet, like a guy jumping off a balcony. I then snapped my momentum through a tucked, head-to-knees flip and shot off like a bullet toward the orange horizon with my arms at my sides and my legs together.

I'm not a flashy guy. You know that. But the occasional air stunt helps keep my ego from eating itself out of starvation. And it just looks cool.

About An Hour Later

By the time I managed to get back, it the sun was nowhere to be seen and the entire ranch was lit up to look inviting. The stadium lights hanging over the front drive had been switched on to show where to drive in, and doing so probably derailed the local raccoon community's entire way of life. And parked carelessly behind the entire line-up of Fent-Mobiles, was a ritzy little foreign car with the dealer wax still glistening off the hood in dusty mounds.

I checked it out before I even landed, phasing my head through a window to look around the interior and shake my head at the four neo-plasma screens in the back seat. The keys were still in the ignition, with the rubber key chain shaped like the company logo jingling against the _still-running_ air conditioning.

Right off the lot, half tank of gas, and ready for a quick getaway. Either that or the owner is just a rich idiot. Either one could describe the guests my parents usually dragged out here, at least it doesn't look like an overnighter. I kind of like the hall of empty guest rooms collecting dust. So much hide and seek potential.

By the time I coaxed myself onto the porch and built up the tolerance to walk in through the front door like a family member. I'd even ecto-formed a little stack of cards, which I shuffled through as I dug through my jeans for the key to the deadbolt.

"Open door…explain lateness…greet guest…excuse self…night of restless insomnia and pointless pondering…"

I tossed the cards over my shoulder, letting them disappear before they hit the porch as I gave up on finding the key and simply swung my foot into the lower portion of the door frame. There was a violent click as the locks popped and the hopelessly old fashioned door just creaked back on its tastefully rusty hinges.

Security lights, heat-seeking lasers, an albino attack dog, and you can just kick the door open. Welcome to the Fenton Ranch.

Not caring that was still dressed in my street clothes from the gym that morning, I proceeded to stomp into the heavily occupied living area belting out my speech as I eyed the scene.

"Was helping out with the wedding. Had to stay late. Didn't kill anyone, no one's pregnant, I'll be upstairs."

Usually I'd say this while walking past them to the stairwell. But I could see right off the bat that this had to be one hell of a client.

My family, spread out around the coffee table in a circle of couches and chairs, actually looked….normal? No jumpsuits or bubble-wrap. My mother wasn't wearing that stupid helmet deal with the cell phone built into the earpiece. She was loafing around on a foot-rest with her legs folded under her and a fitted sweater on that matched her supposed hair color. She was tapping a silver token around a game-board, smiling but I noticed the way her eye kept twitching on the side she usually held her phone on.

My sisters were still doing the red and green deal, helps us tell them apart, but it looked like they raided Kirby's closet.

And since they're literally a foot shorter, the matching belly-shirts just fell down to the belts of their wash-worn cut-offs. Both pairs had belonged to me, before Kirby stole and shrunk them to fit that freaky little waist of hers. And now my pixie-sized sisters were continuing the chain so they could look like hip teenagers. The effect was dulled by the fact they were sitting next to each other in identical postures, nodding at the same time and answering questions as a single unit.

And, my father. An un-tucked polo shirt showed off his recently diminished waistline, and he was slapping the leg of his khakis at who ever had just cracked a joke. I hadn't seen him in a while, and just noticed he'd dyed out his grey hairs. Except he'd forgotten exactly which shade Fenton hair grows in, a quick glance up at my bangs noted that he was a shade lighter than me in the dim light of a few covered lamps and the gas fire cracking in the fireplace.

…holy crap, we had a fireplace!

It took a few seconds, but soon enough the clan looked up from the sectioned game board and bobbed their smiling heads as they continued their conversation.

"…Alan…could you…check my voicemail? NOW?"

"Evenin', Son. HA! The guy actually _said that?_"

"Hi Alan."

"Hi Alan."

"Alan! How ya' been?"

"…Arf."

I sidledup to the base of the stairs, nodding five times and mumbling.

"Sure. Hey Dad. Hi girls. Doin' fine, Mr. Masters. Frost, get off the couch!"

With a light wave and a feigned smile, I mounted the stairs and broke into a trot as I struggled to not make a remark about how my mother arranged her Econopoly money in little interest rate piles next to her drink.

A minute later, I closed Kirby's door behind me and stood in front of it for a few silent seconds. Her dark head popped up from behind her dressing screen, revealing a mangled piece of road-meat with black fur where her hair used to be. She quickly popped her head back down, probably into the collar of a shirt as she yelped.

"'Bout time you got back. Your neighbor's horse got loose. Went out to get the mail, three hours later he gets tired and stops chasing me"

...I just stood there. Not saying a word or even looking at her. She went on as her featureless shadow on the front of the screen stepped into a pair of jeans.

"…I managed to lose him in a freakin' wheat field…Did I, like, seriously piss off a Horse-God? They just _hate_ me…"

The echoing click of her jeans snapping closed. She leapt out from behind the screen like it was a stage curtain and gracefully threw a dust-covered and slightly trampled set of clothes out in the direction of where her couch/gigantic pile of laundry sat. She busied herself tucking her half-dead hair down the back of her shirt, humming the melody of a familiar song. I didn't even breathe differently as a stretchy tanktop drifted down and landed on my shoulder like I was a piece of furniture.

I just stared straight ahead at the currently laundry-curtained window for a few more seconds before her face popped up in front of my dull eyes, trying to revive me with a 200 watt grin. I didn't focus my eyes on her as she pulled a pair of silver sunglasses down from her forehead to the tip of her nose. My reflection on one of the eyepieces just confirmed I hadn't even blinked since I'd walked in.

"…Yoo-hoo…Mr. Statue of Masculinity? You trying to see that Magic-Eye thing on my wall again?"

…I never had the heart to tell her that her 'optical illusion' portrait was just a poster board covered in stickers that Kerri made during her 'artist phase'. I honestly think she just got that paintbrush stuck to the hair behind her ear with paste and decided to go along with it.

She rapped on my forehead with a compact golden fist a few times. She tried to bite her lip in half to hold back one of her window-crashing giggles.

Finally, my mouth moved. Barely an inch, but enough to make a sound.

"…Kirby…"

She continued knocking on my forehead cheerfully.

"Yeah?"

I licked the side of my lower lip slowly and carefully.

"Remember…the one guy? Packers fan? Snappy dresser? Killed my grandfather? Looks great in a ponytail?"

Slowly, her fist slowed to a stop against my tensed forehead. She continued grinning, but tilted her head down so her eyes were visible over her shades. She bounced her chin slightly, nodding while she locked her burning green eyes on my glassy blue ones. I explained.

"…he's sitting on the couch downstairs. And I think Kerri just sold Park Place to him for an empty Tic-Tac case."

The next second reminded me of a cheap scare in a sub-par horror flick. A pair of green eyes rushing at you, and some one digging their claws into your cheekbones while a girl screams.

"_I AM NOT going down there to scare him off with my…!"_

My hand shot up into the inch of space between our faces to clamp itself over her mouth. She continued screaming into my palm as I sighed.

"…I wasn't going to _ask _you to…"

…wait…that would have _worked…_and she had the foresight to call it before I even thought of it…? As she finished sitting curses into my hand, I explained as I brushed the discarded shirt off my shoulder.

"Okay, time for Plan B..."

She apparently forgot I had my hand over her mouth. She began waving her arms at her sides as if explaining something as I reached into my back pocket and felt for a coin. Eventually I just shook my head, snapping my fingers and holding a bright green replica of a quarter to make sure I got both sides right. A questioning 'Urmph?' from my mute sidekick. I flicked the coin a couple feet in the air after stating.

"Heads, I just fly down there and start blasting…"

…that, was all I could come up with. Adrenaline can supposedly make you lift up a car with one arm, everyone knows that from health class. But it also can impair judgment more than some forms of alcohol. You ever see an athlete win a gold medal by a long-shot, and proceed to say the stupidest thing you can ever say on international television? Sadly, I have a history of this. Two minutes after I won my third title belt down West, I actually got down on one knee and proposed to one of Walt's oldest daughter who had come along to watch from the stands.

…right, in front of her husband of two weeks. That was one of my more humorous concussions. In fact, the two brought it up at the funeral to try to cheer me up. Some jokes just never die.

Back in the immediate and fateful present, I watched the coin spiral through its own momentum for a second before it fell back down toward my waiting hand. Then disappeared as a tanned claw of a hand shot out and snatched it out of the air before I could call it. I swung my snapped-open eyes back to the front Kirb' wiped off her mouth with one hand and dropped the coin down the collar of her partially buttoned orange shirt with the other. She just growled at me as I shook her saliva off my palm with a snapped wrist, then phasing it out and back again to get the leftovers off.

"…Let's just _saay_ it was tails..."

At the time, I just thought she was a crazy freak who abused the fact I was too…Alan-ish to just retrieve the coin. I could have just made another one, now that I think about it._ Idiot_!

In a remarkably sleezy, poorly thought out way…she might have saved my life. Again. From the exact same guy in the very same house.

Wonderful. Superman had feminist-icon Wonder Woman to back him up. I get the girl with...eh…feminine decency issues. Just great. My life is officially a graphic novel struggling to attract male readers.

I probably have ten minutes to live. And I'm cracking jokes.

…is that how _Danny_ died?

One Hour Later

Remember how I commented that 'Vlad Junior' bore a striking resemblance to his 'father'? I just guessed that from the eight dozen magazine covers I dug up. I take that back. Up close, his disguise is even worse than the ones I've come up with behind opera houses and in phone booths.

He did a great job of it. Probably a true shape-shifter. But from my visually nitpicking point of view, I've seen better.

Take Vlad Masters. Corporate and Scientific giant of the late twentieth century and early twenty first. Dye his hair black, make the skin look younger and slightly duller, and for kicks why not a stupid little pair of extremely high-tech reading glasses propped on the tip of his nose. I could go on for hours about the face. The ear-high cheekbones, the pointed chin that treats itself like a square jaw, that ponytail I want to hang him with, but I won't. Like I'd want to.

I had time to ponder his appearance because I'd been sitting on an armrest for forty minutes faking interest with the rest of my family as he literally leafed through his photo album with our flat-screen remote control. Get this, he carries five thousand digital photographs in the hard drive of his cell phone. And he plugged it into our TV so we could see them all.

Six hundred eighty seven pictures later. Every single one of them featured 'Vlad the Second' either standing in front of something or next to something. At first I tried to guess which country or landmark it took place in before he could stop chewing on that same pretzel rod to explain it. That got old after three hundred, so now I was just trying not either pass out, or just get impatient and casually mention we're supposed to fight to the death or something.

Oh. And Kirby was there, too. After we got through most of Southern Europe she dropped something behind the couch and went down after it. By the time he rattled on about why he was giving the Sphinx a thumbs-up, I was starting to wonder if she was ever coming back.

That was pretty much the evening thus far. All the Fentons spread out around the living room and nodding as the guest kept flipping through pictures and brushing pretzel crumbs off his jet-black turtleneck approximately every forty seven seconds.

And then, he hit the 'next' button and all of a sudden I was the only person left on the couch. Whatever had popped up on the door-sized flat-screen over the now dead fireplace, made my sisters and parents jump to their feet in practiced unison. And almost as instantly they crowded around under the screen, squinting at it as if it'd been dropped off by a van full of terrorists.

Back on the now vacant couch, I slowly tilted to the left and then slumped over onto my side like a tipped statue. As the boredom started to release its grip on my spinal cord and I noticed that leather taste in the side of my mouth, that well-oiled vice remarked towards the line of empty chairs.

"…Well! That saves me a blurb on business and friendship."

And our long-winded guest rose out of his armchair and approached the semi-circle of backs in front of the fireplace as he tossed aside the now salt-free and slightly sharpened pretzel rod he'd been chewing on for close to two hours.

Either he didn't see me passed out on the couch, or he didn't care, because the thing bounced off the table then landed right in my freakin' eye.

The entire atmosphere of the room changed as he planted his feet behind my parents and explained.

"…_this_ is why I stopped by. I understand you fine folks have a taste for the unusual. Thought you might have some insight on it."

While he looked up at the screen like everyone else was, I was slowly creeping up behind him clutching my salt-burned eye with one hand and brandishing the sharpened pretzel like an ice pick with the other. Right as I was about to drive it into the back of his neck, I glanced up to see what everyone was looking at.

…and suddenly remembered something.

…I was a _ghost_ in a family of _ghost-hunters_, and the guy who nearly plucked out me eye moments ago was _Lord Plasmius! _

Mark that up. Adrenaline and boredom. Both set me back a few hundred years mentality wise.

Up on the screen, was a photograph. Go figure. I could tell from the angle and focus that it was one of those shots you can only get with a zoom the size of a small child and a photographer hooked on illegal depressants to pull of. It was just a routine professional photograph of a line of statues on the ledge of an old building downtown.

And there was what looked like a violent purple web of blurred lines and shapes burned into the background between two faceless statues. If you turned your head to the side slightly and squinted, the little splotch almost looked humanoid in the way the purple lines formed legs and arms.

A weird little purple thing in some one's picture. See why all the Fentons woke up when he clicked this thing up?

I quickly swung my eyes back down at the man standing right in front of me with his back turned and his arms crossed confidently. As the shock of the situation began to wear down, I took note of his height as he bounced on his heels while my family tried to make something of his purple ink blot person. Standing next to my father, who just days ago bragged about being six foot two barefoot, I could see this was a relatively tall guy. He wasn't the quarterback my father was, but his slim frame came up to about six foot. I can't comment on muscle mass, I couldn't tell with the sweater he was wearing.

I quickly snapped my eyes up like everyone else as he turned to my father and practically purred.

"I have a little background in the paranormal myself! Why, when I found this I quickly determined it was the real…"

All of a sudden my mother's voice cut in, flagging me to look back down to see the smooth-faced CEO with his mouth open in mid-syllable. He obviously wasn't used to being interrupted.

"It's a fake."

I watched with a tensed eyebrow as the four forcibly normal specialists turned on their heels to formally address him. My father crossed his naturally thick arms as the twins readied themselves for simultaneous nodding.

"…it's great that you thought of us, Mr. Masters…but this is just a…well-doctored fake."

He wanted to say 'half-assed'.

He nodded his newly darkened temple at the now abandoned screen with its inhuman apparition.

"…it just looks like some one drew in some purple lines and said it was a ghost."

For a few seconds, our visitor just stood there with his usual assured grin. Then he forcibly widened his smile and glanced up at his picture.

"…a…_fake…?_"

He didn't notice when I moved out from behind him. Probably didn't care enough to notice, the girls probably assured him the younger Fentons were even less useful than the originals. As he slowly scanned the line of apologetic but dead serious faces, I made my way behind everyone to stand under by the fireplace and lock my eyes on the tangle of purple lines in the center of the picture. I was barely paying attention as one of my sisters caught their cue and recited.

"Fraudulent paranormal images are very common! Last year, statistics showed…"

As my brow tightened up at the shapeless purple scribble, a low growl cut her off.

"_Like I DIDN'T know that, you little…!"_

…and…silence. The unexpected, awkward silence usually accompanied by blank stares and some one sidling towards the silent alarm button hidden in the four-person family portrait on the wall. Quickly, the same voice countered in a completely different tone.

"…darling, independent young woman!"

As my father slowly stepped between his dinner guest and his currently wide-eyed daughters, I just kept my eyes on the narrowly pixeled image on the wall. The sound of thick-soled shoes shuffling toward where I stood, and that overly casual voice again.

"I think my phone just rang! I think Ill just step outside, and…"

Still looking back at the now close-knit group of slightly appalled family celebrities, he reached up with one spidery arm, and grabbed for where his phone lay in the docking port on the backside of the screen.

…only to bruise his stretched digits as I covered his phone with the hand I wasn't holding that pretzel with. His slightly cold fingers bounced off my calloused ones as he cleared his throat suddenly and rasped.

"…Excuse me, but I have to…!"

Without even looking away from the screen's center, I just cracked my mouth open and cut him off with a light mumble.

"…it's real…"

My staring went in silence for a few more seconds before I felt an extremely tight grip on my right shoulder pulling towards my left. I slowly glanced down to see his vein popping hand gripping my cotton-stretching upper arm as he tried to twist me around to face him. With the grip and strength that belonged on a man easily twice his size.

…and I wasn't moving.

I heard a muffled grunt from his direction before the patter of footsteps in front of me. Soon he managed to just move in front of me and lean up to make sure all I could see were his eyes. I kept my own half-open and as blank as possible as his pupils tightened. That nice-guy voice once again, but edged with something else. Curiosity? Rage? Same thing.

"…_what?"_

I just grumbled in a forced monotone.

"…blends in with the pixels…you can't fake that in this lighting tone."

I then looked up again, right over his forehead at the picture again. I raised my tone and stated into the area of his nose.

"The color looks fake. But ecto-energy shifts spectrums when you process the color of the light through a computer. Green comes out purple, and secondary matter just phases out entirely."

I pointed out the un-feigned areas of the color pattern on the screen, with the tip of the sharpened pretzel rod I'd been tapping against my thigh out of habit. The height issue made itself obvious once again, I was the only one tall enough to even get my hand past the bottom of the screen.

For a few seconds, all I heard was his breathing. He might look younger than my parents, but he had a wheeze worse than Kirby's grandmother.

Does emotion make it harder to keep the act going?

The spell was snapped apart as a heavy hand plopped down on the shoulder Vlad didn't have a death grip on. My father boomed out over my shoulder to the raven-haired man confronting me.

"Alan…hasss…an eye for details. Why, back when he was still with the…"

Vlad ripped his hand off my shoulder to wave my father's commentary away, leaning up to catch my gaze and demanding.

"_You… believe_ me, _right?"_

If I were any shorter, he would have saw my eyebrows jump. By the time I looked back down to him, I managed to pull my monotone act back together and shrugged. I managed to keep myself from spitting as he nodded a few times to assure himself. Grinning. Just grinning.

I felt my entire body twitch out of reflex as he suddenly whipped his neck over to talk to my father as he stood behind me.

"JIM! Great seeing you!"

And then he was finally out of my face, and the phone id been guarding with my hand was gone from its port. I instantly realized phased right through my fingers to get it. I heard his shoes pounding the bare wood floor of the foyer as his yell echoed.

"Stop by anytime! Just not while I'm home!"

I looked over my shoulder right as he slammed the door behind him. As his shoes pounded off the porch toward his car, my mother snapped out of her frozen state to turn to my equally dazed father and yelled.

"…what, was THAT?"

Slowly, the Fentons broke down into confused ending statements and mild cursing.

They all agreed. No more corporate dinner guests.

I was too busy staring up at the now darkened screen to comment that they'd only had about three to begin with.

As things began to settle down and my mother glued her cell phone back into place, I just slowly took my arm down from the screen and slowly shuffled through the circled furniture to the front door. As one of the twins yelled to the other about that guy being a psycho, I pushed myself through the door and looked around the porch and out at the line of cars to see if I was alone.

As the door closed itself, cutting off the noise of the house and leaving me in the muggy night air, I slowly gazed down at the hand I'd just pulled out from behind the TV and quickly tucked into my pocket.

Sitting in my spread palm, wrinkled from the tight fist I'd pushed it into, was a simple white card. The side I was looking at was unprinted and unmarked, except for a fresh line of dark green ink curling around in cursive lettering in a barely legible message.

_Help Wanted_

Slowly, I flipped it over to the printed side. Official black ink, plainly stating without any graphics or slogans.

_Masters Corporation Inc._

_Technological Department_

_Prototype Weaponry Technologies: Storage  
_

_Password: BRET FAVRE_

For a few minutes, I just flipped it and read each side a few times. I noted the scrawled message was burned into the cardboard. Extremely precise ecto-energy, leaves a slight stain that looks like ink. The door squealed open behind me, I quickly hid the card against my shirt until a familiar sigh cut into the wind passing through the uncovered porch.

"…I got stuck under the couch again…"

Without looking back or saying a word, I held the card over my shoulder. A hand took it and a few seconds later Kirby jumped in front of me and grabbed my shoulders. I was just staring off towards the road leading out towards the city. The same road he probably tore up getting out of here.

"…what…what did he say to you?"

I slowly shook my head, looking down to meet her firy gren orbs with a pair of dull blue blades. I just rasped.

"…nothing. The guy just flipped."

I jerked my head toward the house.

"…that was a picture of _me..._in ghost form_…_probably some skyline guy who put his misprints on the web. I just said it's real to keep him from going off on Sherri…"

I looked down at the card she was cradling with both hands.

"…he asked if I _believed_ him. Stuck that in my hand and took off."

I watched her stare blankly at what she held. Not a word. I just stiffly crossed my arms, trying to make this less uncomfortable. Then remembered something, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out a tan-colored wallet as my cousin just shook her head, muttering.

"_Extraño…_just freakin' _extraño…"_

It's about to get weirder.

I slipped something out of my wallet and held it up between us. She glanced up and quickly did a double take down at her hands before snatching the card I held and holding it up next to the one I'd just given her.

She now held two identical business cards. Same company. Same location. Same password. Except mine had that hurried message on the back, the other was blank. I explained.

"…Val…found that, under Keith Krenall's bed. Next to that gun, and whatever else the cops didn't find on his body."

Slowly, only moving out of pure shock, she mouthed a word I couldn't decipher. I looked past her, out toward the dark fields surrounding the ranch.

"…he wasn't playing anyone. I made eye contact, trust me."

I glanced down at the two cards.

"He's…_crazy. _He was completely losing it in there. I have _no clue _what he was trying to do…I don't think he does, either."

I'm not dealing with a maniacal genius. He's not an overlord with an ace in every pocket.

He's an obviously desperate man, with no clue what's going on. Just trying to keep his act together, fall back on the normal half of his life. The half that isn't being chased by its old sins. Paranoid, and ready to just ask some random guy at a party if he's interested in a job in 'weaponry'. No introductions, no sales pitch like Valerie fell for, just ask the ex-outcast if he'd be interested in a little carnage.

He doesn't know. He doesn't know about me. He doesn't know about Val, Sam, or anything else that's happened since this all ended. Just gave up on all of it, to be normal. And now it's all back. And so is the guy he swore he killed. Thanks to me…

He's losing it.

…which makes him infinitely more dangerous than I thought he was.

Author's Notes

…As you can see, I didn't eliminate Vlad as a threat. I just threw on a bottle of lighter fluid. He has indeed lost control of the game board. More powerful than Alan, and possibly Danny will ever be. A company and empire full of resources. But some wannabe-Halfa with halfa brain just stayed under the radar and knocks V-Man's world right off the table along with his knitting needles and copy of 'So You Want To Be Norman Osborn' by Harry Osborn. In all honesty, is Alan just the luckiest ghost alive or has he actually done something right?


	30. Chapter 30

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries.

(PRE-NOTE: Warning. Very, very Alan-heavy and probably boring. Odds are you'll hate it, next chapter it's back to ghost fighting and motorcycle stunts. Whole lot of talking. Not that much emotion. But hey, I think there's a lingerie joke in there, somewhere. I also comment on the concept of 'amateur-feminsm', in which some one with no clue what they're talking about becomes a preachy feminist. This isn't a shot at you intelligent, admirable feminists, this is a shot at morons in general. My girlfriend keeps me on a tight leash, don't worry about any negative portrayal of the opposite sex in my writing.)

One last deep breath. Then it was all or nothing.

She started out slow. A textbook forward flip. Her tee shirt was thankfully tucked into sprayed-on jeans, but that didn't hold back an orchestra of clanging earrings and bracelets as her head and feet switched positions. She could have just followed through and landed on her feet. End of trick. Then again, this isn't a one-trick girl.

When her shoulders pointed down at the floor in the middle of the flip, she shot her hands out and pushed off. She then sprung off her palms and gracefully spun off to the side into a nameless little barrel roll. Before her bare feet could touch the mat, another arm swung out and again pushed her farther into the freefall.

This gave her the time for one last spiraling forward flip before finally landing gently on both braced feet and throwing her arms out to her sides. Smiling widely for the extra judge's point. She even knew to contract her rib-cage and to breathe through her chest. Never let the judges see you breathe, even when you're about to keel over.

Even after a floor routine like _that_, they can't see you breathe. Ruins the entire presentation.

Formalized training in three countries, a total of seventeen years of just learning how to push herself even further into impossibility, a black belt in a fighting style disguised as a dance form, a lifetime of dieting off any form of female figure to stay agile and tight, and all possible with an uncanny, yet natural ability to stay calm throughout it all.

And she never forgot how to smile and hold her breath. It's a gymnast ability all its own.

For a few seconds, she held the finishing posture with her wider shoulders thrust back and her ivory canines showing from behind her perfectly painted lips. Eyes off into the crowd, soaking in the applause to ease her initial exhaustion. That same well-worn, eternally honest smile.

Then, all at once, her emerald eyes snapped down to her bare feet. Her warm grin slowly eased into a reassured little smirk creasing one cheek as she dropped her shoulders and peered back over one at the empty stretch of faded carpeting she'd been springing off of during her performance. Her eyes focused on a faint handprint where she'd started the second spring before nodding up and down a near inch. She then dropped her judging stance entirely and walked/pranced back over the rug slash scoring mat toward the imported feather bed she'd shoved up against the wall where the laundry-upholstered couch used to be,

With one last spring off her crossed ankles, she tucked into a loose ball and landed with a muffled flop onto the bedspread, instantly unfurling her long limbs in a gentle landing on the blankets. And without even having to shift a leg, she was now reclined against a mountain of small pillows quite comfortably with her hand landing right next to the upside-down remote control she'd tossed over earlier.

A picture-perfect forward Carbazzi Fold, into a picture-perfect Girl Sprawled Out On Bed, watching the end bell of a truly ancient black and white film scan of a boxing match.

…As you can see, I don't speak Russian. It's not any more a crime than a twenty year old girl flipping around her bedroom to 'keep off the rust'. She'll be twenty one in nine months, God forbid she become any less limber than a ten year old.

As she settled back with a slow sigh into her almost shapeless, flowery pile of a bed, the screen on the wall went from the last round of Cassius Clay to an animated piece of fruit dancing around singing about itself on a spaceship. Her smile reappeared, her lightly browned hands folding behind her head as she started flipping through the hundreds of lack-luster channels and networks.

She'd…picked up the remote and started channel surfing, with her _feet_, in case you were wondering. Apparently ex-gymnasts are so in touch with their own anatomy they can use their toes like chimps can. Or maybe just this one.

That wasn't a random little dance number during a commercial. Some nights she just pushes some furniture aside and starts pulling out the old routines, or even climbs up into the barn rafters and uses one as a balance beam. Sometimes just for a commercial break, sometimes an entire weekend. Why? That's an even longer story than that scar on Wasp's left thigh that she brought back from Nevada.

Kirby used to be a gymnast. And a cheerleader. And that whole dancing singer thing. In somewhat that order, if you mark off the black belt as a weekend thing. From what I've seen and picked up from high-pitched conversations, most serious gymnasts peak out in their middle teens. And have to stay in that little teenage body if they want any hope of continuing. So, because Kirb' hit her growth spurt like a bus into a magazine stand, she had to give it up at age fourteen. Back at the studio she has a closet full of medals and trophies from before she even turned ten. That's how _good _she was.

Fourteen…that's how _temporary_ it all was.

Towards the end of it, when she was the tallest girl on the team and still managing to pull her weight…actually, that's not the pun to use.

Man, I always hoped I'd never dig that up. Where, to start…

From age five to the day I met Walt, whenever I set foot in my Aunt Maria's school, I ended up sparring or drilling with Kirby. Who was just killing time between her gymnastics practice after school and her voice lessons at night. That's how all this started. My being beaten up by the tall girl every day and learning native Spanish in the process, curse words first. Kirby's probably beaten me up more times than all those other contenders rolled into one, but I doubt they'd give her a belt for that.

What? Did you think she just latched onto me randomly one day? We go way back. Not that long ago, she just caught me all over again and got her claws back in the old scars. Except she had to stretch a bit more, I'd practically doubled in size in the years with Walt.

But I distinctly remember my last few weeks at the studio. After school, just like always. Partly because I had been coming close to cutting myself loose from my last name once and for all. And partly because I beat Kirby in full-contact sparring for the first time. After nearly a decade of her freaky little compliments on every decent move I made, and the counters she used to flip back at me with every not so decent shot. Years upon years, day after day, and I finally beat her.

…because she hadn't eaten in two days. At all.

Now, before you let this slide, look at her genetics. Aunt Janet, who is basically Kirby with gray streaks, has the same body she did at Kirby's age. All the other sisters are of more average build, but would also get more tips as waitresses, bluntly put. The oddball mother and daughter were just made differently. Some shallow guys might say 'better' because they want their girlfriend to be a tanned pile of sticks with a decent bust line, but I just say 'differently'. Janet and Kirb' always ate small portions throughout the day instead of normal meals, always kept insanely active, and kept the milk chocolate relapses down to once a week. No diets, no saunas, nothing stupid.

Then…Kirby started having problems doing bar routines with the team because of how tall she was getting. The ideal female gymnast is built like a doll, and preferably a doll with an eating disorder. And my cousin went from being slightly tall for her age, to…tall. Taller equals heavier. If you need a comparison, I'm actually a bit lighter-built for being six three. That's how much extra mass you usually get from being tall. Scary.

All of sudden, Kirby was skipping a few small meals a day and dressing in layers to help sweat off the water weight. No one pushed her into it. Nobody even suggested it in the locker room. She just had to stay on the team.

Three days after I shuffled into that old gym looking for a phone, Kirby's own struggle ended like mine was just about to. Her family…_our _family… stopped it. Just stopped it. We just got together and convinced her it wasn't worth it. Heck, even _I _came out and told her to let herself fill out a bit and just buy a bra already. Everyone else in fourth grade is doing it.

…actually, Walt wrote that on the back of my hand and said if I didn't say it I'd wake up somewhere in Toronto. Yeah. He _trained_ me to be sarcastic and witty. Someday he'll be regarded as the Lenin of Sarcasmism, after I use it to take over whatever's left of Russia for personal gain.

Six years later. She pulled back the edge of one of my dryer-shrunk shirts to scratch her gently concaved stomach while still flipping channels with her feet. Somehow…in a disturbing manner, this reminded me of those years with Walt, when I didn't see her that often. Then, when I was seventeen and just starting to draw blank stares when I took my shirt off, she walked up to me at one of my aunt's birthdays and brought up Walt's scripted challenge from back when.

In the most…embarrassing…random, and memorable way possible.

…yeah, her dad still talks about the way I clutched at my eyelids I before I lost consciousness.

Walt. First that guy throws me headfirst into a boxing ring. Then he somewhat accidentally started a chain of events leading to Kirby's current taste in clothing and her jokingly flirty manner when she's around me. Maybe he used to play cards with the shooter over the Grassy Knoll and that pizza boy with the hat.

…What? Did you think she was just a sleaze? No, she just really let loose after the team's welfare was off her back. All of a sudden she could show skin without showing ribs, and actually looked like her genetics wanted her to. You know, like a _woman_?

She's not trying to get attention or being cheap. She's just celebrating. By gymnast standards, Kirby and her curves are looked down upon. One of her old high school team-mates recently got her face on a cereal box. You can actually see the individual bones in her neck, like a skeleton with too much lipstick.

It was a close call. Let's leave it at that. She moved on with her less demanding interests, and look how that turned out. Just another tough memory buried in jelly beans and crumpled sheet music. I wish I could have buried Walt the same way.

Not literally, of course. I mean metaphorically He specified a pretty classy mortuary in the will, and I'd rather not risk spilling cheap candy and lousy song lyrics all over his new room mates. Their descendents would probably complain if they ever got around to visiting their own freakin' parents.

My sarcastic mediation was broken as a faint knocking sound carried over from the door, freezing the reclining spectator in mid-sigh. For a second, she just stared at the door with a comically tilted head and tight painted lips before springing off her elbows onto her feet and quickly bouncing over to the door. She wrapped a hand carefully around the dull-brass knob, took another deep breath and swung it open. Then pulled the person behind it into the room and gently slammed it shut, all in one fluid if not noisy motion.

The obviously shaken visitor watched with wide purple eyes as her host rushed up toward her, bending down to clear the height difference before demanding in a whisper. Suddenly, she wasn't so relaxed.

"_¿Usted lo vio?"_

Her houseguest quickly recovered, narrowing her artificially colored eyes and snapping back from behind dark lipstick.

"Lay off the Spanish with the white girls…"

Without skipping a beat, Kirby repeated in the same tone and volume.

"_Did you see him?"_

Sam…wasn't playing along.

She just buried her hands back in the pockets of her black velvet jacket, turning away from Kirby's demanding stare to glance around the room while jingling her keys in one of the filled pockets. She stepped out of her heels, kicking both of them into a pile near the door as her eyes scanned the four bland white walls and their surprisingly vibrant decorations. As her eyes finally reached and locked onto the white plaster half of a face-mold, her violet pupils narrowing on it in obvious recognition. As she stepped towards the stolen theater mask and the overstuffed chair it hung over, she answered Kirby's question. The poor girl had been bent over in the same place looking worried for about ten seconds, Sam was just being polite.

"…Jimmy? Yeah, yeah, he and the girls are off cleaning up the place. I love dropping in at the worst possible time. Once, they…"

She was now standing with her arms folded in front of her, leaning over the chair to get a closer look at the glossy white mask with its empty eye socket. As she went to tell Kirby about whatever had happened, she turned her head to find the Latina's face once again an inch from her own with that same startling expression.

This time around, the woman just raised a Crayola-colored eyebrow and asked, probably wishing for a breath mint with how close they were.

"…Oh…you mean _Damian? _Checked that cozy little barn and his room, didn't see him. Must be out on that 'paper route' of his…What the…!"

The ageless Goth found herself flopped down on the shapeless bed across the room, bouncing lightly against the stuffing as she watched with gritted teeth as the one who'd practically thrown her shot across the room and started digging furiously through a pile of pastel-colored laundry as Samantha leaned up and managed not to yell.

"…are…you alright', Deary?"

…yeah…she still says 'Deary', I think she picked it up in Florida from the other retirees. She likes to make fun of her age. They probably still check her ID when she buys sacrificial wine, at age sixty something, but she has a 'I'm so old!' sense of humor.

'Deary', meanwhile, had found whatever she'd hidden under a pile of sports bras and those bandanas she probably stole from Wasp's apartment. Well, actually it's Aron's, but Wasp spread her spores all over the place. Poor guy can't even fit his deodorant and head-razor in his medicine cabinet anymore.

Sam shrugged her velvet-strapped shoulders and made herself comfortable as Kirb' almost sprinted back across the room with as she plain out kissed whatever she'd dug up before slamming it into a coin-sized indentation on the front of her flatscreen which was still blaring cartoons on the wall opposite the bed.

Before my grandmother could make a crack about all that for a micro-disc, Kirby landed on the bed next to her with her chin against her knees and her flaming green eyes locked on whatever had just started playing after she put the chip in. Sam stared at her golden profile for a few seconds before, blinking and looking at the screen herself. Judging by the way her purple eyelashes nearly flew off, she suddenly understood.

Kirinia has just popped in one of the forty nine little name-brand crystals she had lying around her chambers. She'd just started playing the last one, number forty nine.

The footage now playing on the wall-screen started off with something that definitely caught Sam's attention.

Me. Shrugging out of a white hooded robe, clad in just a pair of matching grey trunks and ring-shoes in the corner of a professional fight ring. The pro-grade cameras followed the satin robe as I tossed it to a waiting corner-man before turning back toward the camera banging my (surprise) grey gloves together rather scientifically to get a feel for the brand the sponsor has given all the fighters that night.

If I recall…the thumb was a bit tight for my liking.

The usual pre-bout routine. Just another boxing match. And as usual, I never once looked at the camera. Just in my own world. Welcome to boxing.

Then a similar clip of my tattoo-draped and noticeably larger opponent talking with his equally inked and meaty trainer, and as I found out it he was also his father. Without even bothering to explain it, the cameras cut away from both fighters and the ring entirely to what was happening right outside the ropes on my corner.

For some reason, the lightly booming crowd had suddenly shut up. And the camera-guy stopped trying to get a good focus on my abs to see what was going on.

Somebody had just stepped out of the tunnel my crew and I had just walked out of. Behind the rest of the group.

And he was limping.

The crowd had died down when it just caught sight of him. He was a larger-set male, probably a bit over six feet if he hadn't been slouching over so heavily over his left side. His noticeably wide shoulders, even slumped down as if in pain, hinted at a background in athletics. Like the rest of my corners, he was wearing grey slacks and a glossy but still grey jacket. But unlike my bare-headed cut man and handlers, he was wearing what looked like one of those old brimless caps that belong back in the 1920s.

But a hundred years later, he was still wearing a cap.

And he was limping heavily over if his left leg. He had an unusual, hopping step which probably startled the crowd into silence, out of respect for an obvious cripple. Over the course of the next three minutes, he forcefully and endlessly hopped down the stretch of cleared ground down to the ring. By this time, everyone in the stands was wincing with every step and wheeze he took. At one point, the cap tilted and the camera caught a bit of his tanned and wrinkled face under it. You could barely make out a straight-line mustache over his sun-darkened upper lip.

Finally, he was leaning against the side of the elevated ring. Quickly, a few people preparing the ring got to his side and in a mute conversation offered help getting up with the rest of the team. Most of his fellow corner-men were offering hands to help him up.

But back in the corner, the raven-haired and grey-clothed fighter kept staring down at his gloves. The camera made sure to get the way his dull blue eyes passed right over his own rather impressive physique which had at one point gotten a few whistles from the crowd. He was just staring at those gloves instead of the pity case like everyone else.

Back in the real world, a Goth whispered to the owner of the tape.

"Geez…looks at those veins on his…"

"SHH!"

And that was that.

The limping man…simply shook his head at the volunteers. The crowd went even quieter. Not only was he in so much pain, he was independent about it.

So, all the helpers and corner men, even my opponent who had ambled over to help like the good Christian he was, all gave him room to get up on his own.

This…was what the cameras had been waiting for.

Visibly in pain from it, he reached up a slightly tanned, ring-studded hand to grip the bottom rope. Back to the fighter banging his gloves. Then back to the man about to climb the ropes.

…without a single warning, the crippled old man flipped himself over the wall of ropes with a nimbleness that rivaled Kirby's. As the audience gasped, he landed on both feet as if the prosthetic hidden in his left pant-leg was as real and strong as his right. Then, in front of the stunned and slack-jawed crowd, he strutted to the center of the ring with a completely different posture and swagger. As he stood up to his full height and snatched a wireless microphone from a speechless referee, he reached up and ripped the ancient cap off his head and spun it off like a Frisbee into the crowd.

A close-up of his unveiled face. And from the direction of where Sam reclined on the feather bed, there came an honest and unexpected sound.

A wolf whistle.

He was a looker. Wrinkled from years in the sun, probably older than both fighters put together, but better looking as well. He had dark features, with brown-black hair and matching eyes that practically had no pupils with how black they seemed. His upturned lips revealed a mouthful of pearly white teeth, the same ones he'd been born with rather than a polished set of dentures. He always bragged about that.

Stretching a warm grin to each chiseled cheekbone, he scanned the silent crowd with those dark eyes, raising a thick eyebrow and reaching up to scratch his neck loudly into the microphone. He then asked, in a raspy but very articulate voice…

"…what happened? Did some one die and they stopped serving booze out of respect?"

With one silent crack of a wink, breaking the spell, the crowd went wild. _Everyone_…went wild.

Uncontrollable laughter. That was the only way to describe it.

The cameras got shots of all over. The corner-men, bent over each other and high-fiving each other for pulling it all off without giggling. The man behind it all, waving to the crowd and flashing each row of seats a white smile all his own. The other fighter, wiping tears off his face while trying to suck some air into his tiger-patterned chest.

…and then the fighter in the grey. The one the master comedian had come to back up. Still banging his gloves without a care in the world. Then he paused in mid-impact, slowly looked up at the laughing stadium and just shook his head an inch to each side before looking back down at his gloves to hide the microscopic smirk in his pale right cheek.

…as sick as that joke always was…Walt made it funny. Always did.

Next thing I knew, we were watching the third round. Maybe some one fast-forwarded, maybe I've just relived it so many times it all runs together.

It was a good match. Punches flying non-stop. Weaving and lightning blocks all over the place, circling both ways to try and find an opening. And that was just me. The other guy was doing okay, too. He recently lost some weight and got the world title as a cruiserweight. Good for him, he was a nice guy. Drove the same beat-up car he did before he got all those sponsorships and magazine deals, that is class.

What really set the pace, was how fast my punches were flying. Every time the tattoo-ed man left an opening, I threw five or six full power punches into it.

He had about twenty pounds on me. Was an inch taller. And could probably snap my neck like a twig if he aimed for it. Before I could knock bags through walls and tear phonebooks with one hand, I was the fastest little shit Walt ever worked with.

And it stuck.

As I packed on a hundred pounds of functional muscle, I just got faster. Some guys throw one punch a second. I throw four. Swarming. It's a style that only the freakishly gifted and conditioned could pull off, every single shot a power shot. And at more than eighty six punches a round on average, that's saying something. And since compared to most heavyweights I'm actually smaller than average, I needed all of it.

And it made everyone I ever got in the ring with develop a fear of tornadoes. Especially the one an announcer once said didn't belong in the ring. I belonged back home taking golf lessons and drinking tea with my white-collar family. Phantom. Just a reminder of where I came from. They figured I'd disappear after I took my first punch.

I didn't vanish. I sent the other guy to the hospital. Earlier in my career was a bit of a knockout artist and I can't say I'm proud of that. Too bad you can't change nicknames.

So, imagine ten rounds of me making this trained champion look like he was stuck in a phone booth with a beehive. Once in a while, you could hear Walt yell out something.

"To your left!"

I went right, and won the round.

"Cross it!"

I hooked it. Won the round.

"…Duck!"

…I…didn't duck…

…won the round…

…is this where _Kirby_ got that crap from?

But like most things, it didn't last.

Fourteenth round. Ten seconds in. The camera's on me, as usual. I'm face-down on the logo-ed canvas. Not moving. One arm stuck under my neck, one leg twitching. The referee is leaning over me, counting off the knockout when he really wants to check my vitals. Back in his corner, my opponent is staring over at where I lay with his gloves down. He's not smiling. He honestly looks scared. Like I said. He was a good guy.

The camera should have stayed on me. But instead, Walt's face filled the screen. They wanted to see my trainer's face when I went flat-line.

He was…leaning over the ropes in a relaxed manner, peering around at the crowd before looking over toward my unmoving body and calling out in a completely off-color tone.

"…you looking for dropped change or what? I told you, those shorts don't come with pockets!"

He…was making fun of his fighting prodigy…who wasn't getting up…

The camera stayed on him. The operator was probably so taken off-guard her forgot I was lying there. Almost casually, Walt turned and saw the camera on him. He looked right up into the lens, giving the camera a dark-eyed stare. Slowly, his mouth slid into an ivory slice of a smirk. He raised a hand, still facing the camera, and snapped his fingers out. His thumb was pointed over to where the referee was counting me off.

The camera man clumsily swung the camera back over, he must have just remembered that.

…once again, not a sound from the crowd.

I was standing. In the center of the ring. Shoulders wide, stained gloves resting against my sweat-darkened shorts, and not even showing a sign of injury.

The camera didn't catch it. They just showed the crowd's reaction.

They'd just watched a man suddenly rise up from near-death. With his tame blue eyes practically burning out of their sockets, right at the unmoving opponent across the ring. They showed some people in the back, straining their necks to make sure that was the same fighter. The press box, still holding their phones but not saying anything. And finally, a shot of the front row. You could clearly see a group of college-age teenagers leaning out of their seats, staring up into the ring as if it was on fire.

And behind them, you could see a green-eyed girl holding her mouth with both hands.

The cameras hadn't seen it, but Kirby had. She'd come with a few friends, started scribbling some lyrics on a napkin after she saw me flinging punches.

...she'd seen some one who looked a little like me, flip onto his feet as if he hadn't even taken that missed hook to the back of the head. That guy wasn't human.

Eventually, the spell broke and the ref signaled for the round to resume. The opponent, obviously dazed and confused, raised his gloves and bounced back out with blank eyes. Not sure what to do.

I hadn't moved. I hadn't even raised my gloves. I just stood there like a post, watching him bounce up. Still staring daggers into him, not showing a single emotion. Sam and the actual witness watched the screen as the unwilling fighter fired a jab towards my unguarded stomach. They watched a grey blur fly across the gap between the two, and they winced as the man slid on his back across the smooth canvas, slamming into the padded corner post like a ton of bricks.

Cut back to the center of the ring. Almost out of film.

I hadn't moved. None of the cameras caught that punch. Let alone the human eyes surrounding the ring, including Kirby's.

Right hook to the body.

The camera settled on Walt. Still leaning over the ropes, and looking off at his creation with a slight frown. Slowly, it tilted back into a smile as I bounced backwards next to him, suddenly back to my old self and looking woeful as the ref checked out the other guy. As some one off-screen called out that he was okay, the camera ended with a freeze-frame of the two of us. Me, standing in my corner with my gloves hanging off against my hips. Staring off with soft blue eyes, hiding the confusion behind them. And behind me, out of my sight, was Walt. Crossing his arms over the rope he was bent over, looking over at me with his head bent into a gentle nod. Smiling.

End of tape.

Twenty Minutes Later

Sam watched with high brows as Kirby paced the room for the sixteenth time. She was rattling off a pre-prepared monologue that her guest was just taking in with a blank expression.

"…his eyes…"

She spun back on a heel, going the other way as she spoke down into the floor with tight lips.

"…whenever he…"

Silence for a few laps. Sam, gently, finished.

"…goes ghost?"

Kirb' nodded, quickly picking pace again.

"Yeah. When he does…"

She stopped. She kept her eyes on the rug as she just broke down and sighed.

"…God, I'm an idiot…"

A patter of bare feet, and Sam's hand landed on the girl's slumped shoulder. She corrected her.

"…No, you just lack speaking skills."

Kirby didn't look up. She just let her head hang down over her torso as Sam went on.

"…you were _trying, _to tell me that whenever Alan goes Phantom, he reminds you of that last round. When he…creeped out like that. And you're wondering if this is something to worry about."

Kirby shot back a blank green stare. Sam just shrugged, rolling her eyes.

"…you have good body language?"

A few minutes later, Kirby was cross-legged on the floor against her bed and starting to calm down. Sam was lying back on it, arms folded under her knees as she began.

"…Alan had a pretty tough childhood, you know that?"

Kirby managed not to roll her eyes, even though Sam wouldn't have seen if she did. The older woman went on, back in her lecturing groove as usual.

"He was always a good kid. Polite, well-meaning, not a bad bone in his body."

She raised a pale hand and examined it under the lamp next to the bed.

"…but what my son…put him through…Alan was just a _kid…"_

Kirby's head bounced back against the side of the mattress, paying close attention without looking at the speaker.

"Towards the end, Alan was high-risk. He was holding back a lot of anger. Towards himself."

Kirb' grunted questioningly. Sam answered.

"He didn't know that his parents were doing anything wrong. He just knew he wasn't good enough. Eventually it got worse, and he started hating everything in general. Never heard him complain. He didn't know how But every time I just looked in his eyes…"

A few seconds later, she finished, making sure Kirby hadn't seen the tear.

"…he couldn't read. The training set him back so much, he couldn't read his name in fifth grade. He was a functional illiterate. Only me and a few of his teachers knew. The Fentons aren't really book-people."

She rolled onto her side, gazing off around the room like she was a girl again. Yet she kept on in that extremely mature tone of voice.

"…when he did quit…I was starting to worry. I mean, I tried getting him help. From a doctor. Some one who could help him through it all. But Jim and Helen wouldn't have it. Bad for publicity."

She peered down at the top of Kirby's head. She couldn't see how narrow those green eyes had become.

"I just hoped he wouldn't hurt anyone. Or himself. When Jim called and told me how he ditched the poor thing downtown, because he asked to stop, I flew right up here to look for him."

The listener asked.

"…did you?"

Sam bobbed her head, staring off at that mask on the wall again.

"…Yeah. Looked all over that part of the block. Found him inside that crappy old gym, that guy with the fake leg was holding a bag and telling him how to hold his hands up."

A light smile. As light as one can be with black lipstick.

"…that's when I first met Walter. When he asked if he could work with Alan a bit, help him with his anger like he did with the local kids, I thanked him. Then he took Alan off to Chicago for a year, the next day. Just like that. If it weren't for the fact Alan was writing letters to tell me how it was…"

More silence. Another hidden tear.

"…he _wrote _the letters…he was writing. I didn't care what that man was doing to him or for him, he could read. Next time I saw Alan, he was the same Alan I used to read about Egypt to. I always hated boxing. It's just stupid."

Kirby snapped her head around, looking up at the edge of the bed with sharp eyes, Samantha went on.

"…then it saved my grandson. The only person who ever reminded me of Danny. Saved him. All there is to it."

Kirby's head slowly rose up on her periscope of a neck, up over the edge of the floral blanket. She asked, slowly and carefully.

"…you've saw that tape before, didn't you?"

Sam looked up at the white slope of the ceiling and nodded.

"…so I flipped out all over the place, for nothing?"

Another nod. Kirby let herself slump back onto the floor, her head thudding on the carpet through her thick mess of hair as she sighed at her own stupidity. Her half-open eyes snapped back to full as the teacher kept going.

"…then, in comes 'The Phantom'…"

Instantly Kirby was sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched forward to hear everything about anything. Sam smiled at this, glancing back up at the ceiling.

"The first time Alan shifted, he was different. The cockiness. The way he carried himself. Even the smile, it's all different. Danny had the same problem."

She closed her eyes, more to rest them than to appear dramatic.

"Danny had two sides. Danny Fenton, and Phantom. One was the lazy teenager I fell in love with. The other, a cheap rip-off of every copyrighted superhero you can name."

Kirby tried to stay focused, but the nose twitch that resulted from that comment broke the mood.

"Apparently, the concept of having powers and the ability to change things did something to him. He developed this other side modeled after what he thought of as a hero. Lame catchphrases. The costume. Kept' calling me 'Lois' and 'Mary Jane'."

…who the heck are Lois and Mary Jane? And who states their middle name after their first? Damian Alan sounds like a roleplaying game. Well, better than Kirinia Yoko.

Eh…Uncle Carlos…just hates the Beatles?

"He was a teenage boy. That's all heroes were to him, comics and cartoons. And girls. Took him a while before he wised up and saved me from rolling my eyes out of their sockets."

Kirby managed to stop wincing. Maybe she knew what Sam was talking about, she read a few comics in her day.

"Alan…just turned into this whole other person. I think he did the same thing as Danny. Except with people he just _thought of_ as heroes."

She swatted a toe towards the still-paused wall-screen. Where's Walt's face still hung next to mine in the pixels.

"…No doubt, there's some of _him _sticking around inside Alan. He'll never admit it, but that sense of humor is still alive inside him."

She paused, taking a breath.

"And…I always used to talk about Danny when he was really young…he didn't blink twice when I mentioned him right before that portal changed him. Now he probably sees Dan as some superhero _he _ripped off."

She snapped her eyes open, leaning up and practically shoving Kirby off her own bed. She caught herself, but Sam didn't notice as she got to her feet and locked her eyes on the door.

"…where is he, anyway?"

Hanging off the edge of the bed with one arm, Kirb' gasped.

"…out…been gone all day…!"

As she lost her balance with a yelp and thudded down onto the carpet, ending up with her stuck between the bend of her knee, Sam started walking towards the door and grabbed her shoes as she passed them. She called back over her shoulder, facing away from where Kirby was untangling herself on the rug.

"I…gotta' go start passing out presents like a proper grandmother."

She made sure not to let the younger woman see how her make-up was dripping.

"…Do him a favor. Don't talk to Alan about this. I'm probably wrong about all the 'Phantom' stuff, last thing the guy needs is more stuff he doesn't understand."

And she closed the door behind her.

…That, was Sam in a nutshell. Skip the emotions, keep to the facts, and don't let anyone see you cry. God Bless Her.

By the time Kirby got herself back on her feet and got her thoughts back in order, she was alone. Standing in the middle of her unchanged yet completely changed room. The end of the video still frozen on the screen, a dab of black make-up where Sam had rolled over on the bed. She dusted herself off, just to calm herself down further as she let her barely settled eyes swing back and forth across the room. The bed. The single guitar leaning against a chair. The masks and polished but blunt weapons adorning the walls.

Slowly, she managed to take her hands off her hips and slid them into her pockets. She stumbled slightly forward before settling into a steady walk towards the door. Just as carefully as before, she opened the door and let herself out after another glance around the room. Just trying to figure out why it felt so differently than when she was flipping around to please the invisible judges.

A few seconds after the door closed and click into place, I let myself materialize in the overstuffed but admittedly uncomfortable chair underneath the white mask on the wall.

I'd been there the whole time.

I wish this was just a third-person telling of something I never witnessed, or my own imagination. But I saw and heard the whole thing. I was right there the entire time, unseen but not unfeeling. I stiffly stood up, shaking my shoulders out a bit as I carefully removed the mask from the wall and gripped it in one hand as I walked over to a round metal shield mounted on the wall, it was a fancy little arm-shield borrowed from my Janet's Oriental collection back home. It was polished enough that I stared right into it and saw a clear reflection of myself.

For a few minutes, I just examined every detail of my reflection in the makeshift mirror. The blue eyes just boring enough to make their color look common as dirt. The skin that never paled or tanned. The nose which Walt had taken meticulous care in setting so no one could ever tell how many times it had been broken by a well-placed jab.

The jaw-line that had gone from being full and supposedly 'cute' when I was younger to tight from the lost body fat. My black hair. Trimmed every couple weeks with a pocket knife, just a bit shorter than it was whenever I shifted. Then I glanced down at my hand. I gazed down at the glassy white plaster that the mask had been carved from. In the smooth curve of the forehead section, I could see that same reflection. Distorted, paled and not to scale, but the same reflection.

I violently twisted to the side, letting the mask fling out of my hand into the bed. I watched with a tight brow as it just skidded off the blankets and harmlessly bounced against the pillow pile, landing face-up and angled to it was looking right at me with its missing eye.

I should have just walked right over and smashed it myself. Heck, I could have just blasted it with an ecto-flame and stomp out the flames.

But I didn't. When I turned to throw it, I made the mistake of seeing the wall-screen out of the corner of my eye.

One look at Walt's face, next to mine, frozen in time…

I just shot off full air-speed, right into the wall. Phased a split second before my face hit the plaster, and just took off into the night sky. It was a new moon. But didn't need the stars or the moon. You don't need anything when you can see in the dark, really.

All you need is something to see. Which I didn't have.

Night vision or not, I was stuck in the dark.

Six Hours Later, 3 AM

…t…te he…the, it was the…

It was a slow night. I was hanging around the worst part of the city. In the absolute shadiest alley on the block. Leaning against the brown brick wall under a flickering neon lamp, with one black-clothed leg crossed over the other as an opened newspaper concealed most of my upper body and head. Just trying to blend in.

And I was seeing if I could read upside-down. I was that bored.

My right ear pricked at a distant slapping sound. As the rapid smacks became louder and more rapid, I paused my lopsided reading to extend my right leg out in front of me while keeping the same posture against the wall. A few minutes later, right as I realized I wasn't reading the sports page, something hit my leg going full-sprint and the smacking noises gave way to a loud thud and something metallic clicking against the asphalt. Loud panting, like some one was choking on something.

And without explanation, there was a muffled clacking noise and a squared indentation appeared in the middle of the page I was trying to read. I flipped the page down, frowning slightly as I saw the black barrel of a scuffed handgun glinting in the orange light of the old lamp mounted over my head. I sighed with a rasp, flipping the rest of the paper closed with one had before tucking it under one arm.

"Sorry, already checked. It ain't the sports page."

A brown thumb pulled back the safety clasp. Tried to, at least. The hand holding the thing was so shaky I was surprised he hadn't dropped it. Maybe he had some double-sided tape inside his palm or something.

The young man behind the gun was just as shaky. He wasn't the biggest thug I'd seen, he probably came up to my mid-chest. Probably a bit more than a hundred pounds, didn't look like he'd eaten anything solid in a while. He was drowning in a pair of what I guessed used to be a pair of dress pants and a patch-covered duster that was dragging along the ground behind him. I couldn't tell in the orange light of the alley, but he looked Latin. Very dark features, but even with the orange glow the lamp cast he looked a bit pale to be a full Hispanic. Not surprisingly, he had a slightly rodent-like face featuring an obviously broken and poorly mended nose and a section of lip pulled back to show off a set of chipped teeth with a gap where his canine should have been. In his right hand he held the trembling gun pointed straight at the left flap on the front of my jacket, and in his left swung a small red purse which he'd snatched off the ground after I'd tripped him.

And he was shaking like a leaf.

"_I'll kill you, jerk! I kill you!"_

…definitely Latin…I hate to admit this, but our death threats always come down to 'I kill you'.

I glanced down with the eye my silver bangs hadn't crowded over, managing to keep my eyebrow down as I jerked my chin towards his other arm and said.

"So, you got the shit-piece gun and the church box clothes, but splurged on the Prada bag? What kind of retirement plan you got?"

That quaking gun barrel tried to keep itself level with my stomach. He screamed in a cracking tone up at me, obviously scared out of his mind. Either this is his first death threat, or this guy was hocked up on so much stuff he couldn't remember if it was.

"_Go to hell!"_

I didn't even bat an emerald eye as he screamed again. He jammed three fingers through the trigger guard, and pulled.

A point blank shot, right through my kidneys.

Right after the ear-shattering crack died down, he stared up at me with his lower teeth showing and wild eyes. He hadn't meant to do it.

I smirked down at him, pulling back the black leather flap he'd fired into. Underneath it, my grey shirt was unmarked and intact, as if it'd gone right through me.

And since I was blocking the view, he couldn't see the smoking slug striking out of the bricks right behind me.

What'd he do? Run? Scream? Drop the gun and run to give the purse back?

No, he screamed at top of his squawking lungs and fired four shots right up at my chin. The headshot. Nobody lives through that.

I kept smirking. I could hear the bullets tearing into the brick behind my head, he kept pulling the trigger until nothing but clicks came out. He stood there, holding the now motionless gun up at me and trying to move his lips. His leg twitched.

Before he could even think of running away, his forehead collided with the two main knuckles of the hand I wasn't holding the paper with.

He folded back from the blow, falling into a heap over a pile of ancient trash collecting against the wall of the alley. The last thing he saw before his eyelids slammed shut was the orange lamp suddenly shattering, and being replaced with two green orbs staring down at him.

Thirty Seven Minutes Later

"…then he just tripped, ran into a pipe, whatever. He matches the profile, he's out cold, and you two just have to show up to file a report."

The redheaded woman, crossing her arms so tightly her hands were tucked into the underarms of her miniature jacket. It was actually a warmer night. Either she was just cold-blooded, or that tiny jacket actually made her colder. She chattered out through her visibly crooked teeth.

"…my _phone _was in that purse! Can't you just give us a ride to a nicer block?"

The cop just shook his head, keeping his passenger side window cracked open simply so they could hear him. Next to him, his partner was trying to shove his head into a riot helmet to see if it could fit with the uniform's baseball cap under it.

In the wire-caged back seat, that shaky little punk was wrapped up in his own jacket, having not moved since they dragged him out of that alley. Standing outside the car on the side with the cop without the headgear issue, was an obviously married couple, trying to get that purse back. The almost as obvious rookies had forgotten to pick up the purse they'd had to step over to pick him up. That's the problem with giving them those fancy uniforms. It makes them look like they actually know what they're doing.

"Lady, this isn't a cab. If you really need a ride back, just look around for the purse or find a payphone."

Her husband, trying not to appear self-conscious in a pink dress shirt.

"…a payphone? Officer. This is the twenty first century."

The officer's retort? Humming the window up all the way and nodding for his partner to tear off down the empty block between the dull orange lamps.

…they_ really_ need to change those bulb. We pay enough taxes.

The rather young couple watched them off from the sidewalk, almost cursing in unison. As they eyed their surroundings, the man groaned.

"…I just _had _to let you carry my wallet…"

The redhead hissed.

"It's called _liberation…_Sarah tried it with Seth and they came out fine!"

The pink-shirted blonde man just sighed through his teeth, scanning the grimy street for any sign of another human being or even an intelligent rat with a cell phone. His wife kept shivering into her mini-jacket, until she slowly stopped and pointed a thumb towards the mailbox next to them.

"Uh…Sammy…"

The man looked, his arms crossed as well in frustration. His eyes fell on the stylish pink purse propped up on its base atop that blocky and probably abandoned mail box they'd been standing next to.

"…were…they pulling our leg?"

His shivering wife.

"Who cares, it's friggin' cold! Just call Karr and get me outta' here!"

The man slowly stepped up towards the old box, squinting down at the lost purse for a moment before prodding it with a calloused finger. Eventually, after a few complains from his superior other, he just opened the purse and pulled the phone out of a side-pocket, hitting the speed dial as she snatched her purse back and did an inventory check while he greeted some one named 'Karr'. About twenty minutes later, they piled into the back of a nice little vintage convertible that'd pulled up, but not before 'Sammy' asked her ten times if she'd seen one of the cops put the purse there. She just told him to shut up, it was too cold.

As the slanted tail-lights swerved off behind a burnt-out warehouse, I let my chin fall into one hand. I was comfortably sitting cross-legged, atop the bulb fixture of an unlit and slightly crooked street lamp right over where the conversations had taken place. I sighed, ditching the rasp in my solitude.

"You're welcome…"

Eventually, boredom kicked back in. Still perched atop the unstable and probably condemned light, I reached into my jacket and pulled out my phone. I clicked around the buttons, frowning deeper as the screen stayed dark.

Dead battery. Sherri stole the charger for the thing because Kerri broke hers. Sam's staying the night back home. Waiting for me in my room. Kirby's out tuning her guitar collection in the barn. And now I can't even play Frog-Quest until dawn like I often did.

I busied myself digging through the inside pockets of the jacket, emptying the contents into my lap and occasionally throwing something off onto the empty street.

"…wrapper…wrapper…flashlight, pfft, should give that to Kerri…wrapper…dime…"

My eyes snapped wide as I pulled out a palm-sized canister with a triggering ring hanging off the end. I squinted at it in the dull light of the dead neighborhood, barely making out where I'd filed the police department logo off.

"Man, what was I thinking…"

Shaking my head at my old gimmick, I gracefully threw the thing over my shoulder and listened as it clanged off a stripped car half-way parked on the curb. Next I pulled out a tiny piece of paper, and instantly prepared to flick it off into the evening when I caught sight of the writing on it.

_Help Wanted_

I let it lay flat in my palm. I stared down onto it, knowing what the other side said without even having to turn it. I remembered the address. The exact department. The password to get in alone and unnoticed, while everyone else was home asleep.

…A nice little job orientationn, really. Plasmius had gotten pretty business wise. Valerie had to pay for the shipping on that hover-board she used to have, nowadays he just passes out these cards and lets the kids help themselves.

Slowly, I let my orange fingers curl into a fist around the slightly creased card. I raised my eyes, looking out and around at the orange and black skyline that slowly gave way to the white and blue one the newer part of town gave off, the nicer part. I could make out the rebuilt apartment building, now studded with LED floods and all the latest living technology after centuries of urban use, with a faint shape poking off its side into towards the buildings next to it. That gargoyle. Maybe it wouldn't mind keeping me company.

I glanced back down at my fist, opening it to put the card back in place.

…And nearly fell of the lamp.

Where the probably crumpled and maybe sweat-stained card, should have been sitting in my stretched palm…was just a pile of glowing green embers and dark ash. Still steaming.

…Must have scorched it without even trying…

Dropping my chin down and shaking it at my carelessness, I raised the hand to my mouth and blew the cremated business card off into the windless night.

If only destroying the card's owner could be as easy. It'd been days since I'd seen any ghosts.

Something was going down. I can't waste time flying around and eavesdropping on relatives. I need some answers. Not theories, not little childhood stories, answers.

And…I may just know where to get them.

She's been on the 'Most Wanted' roster for decades, how hard could she be to find?

No, I wasn't just trying to avoid Sam and Kirby!

I was trying to avoid my human side in general.

And…the other side…Thanks a lot, Sam. First you walk right through me to look at that stupid mask. Then you turn my life into a campfire story. As if that strip club thing and the half-ghost saga weren't bad enough.

Who am I kidding? That woman taught me how to unwrap hard candy with my tongue, least I could do is let her objectify me behind me back.

…then again…I couldn't really prove her wrong, could I?

Author's Notes

...Surprised? Did you imagine Walt as some old hunchback with white hair and a twitchy eye? Odds are, thanks to those Stallone movies, you thought of a boxing trainer as a stereotype. So much for that. I apologize for all the character development and boredom, just had to get all this out there before I start rewriting the old entries to match the new ones. I promise, they won't be as bad as this. I actually plan on adding more action scenes, this is as bland as I'll let a chapter get. Now, there's nowhere to go but up. And Lessien did another portrait of Kirby, check her art page. I've already told her how much I appreciate it, but getting her a few reviews never hurts. Review whenever it's conveniant, and further apologies for all the dialogue and descriptions of Kirby's nest area.


	31. Chapter 31

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries, and do note I own no mentioned franchises.

(Pre-Note/Apology: Sorry for the four-day delay. It's been a weird week. three days of Halloween/Day of the Dead that actually takes up two days. At one point, i had a human skull sitting on my desk wearing a White Sox cap. My entire gym is currently in the process of prank-hazing one of the little guys, and my keyboard joined the union. This is going to be a weird chapter. Not much plot, some character development that is true to each personality, and is simply a break from all the depressing crime scenes and dead heroes you guys love reading about. Just a warning, do not drink or eat anything while reading this chapter. Or handle a writing utensil, heavy macinery, or anything sharp. If you have any heart conditions, please pop a pill now, this may be funnier than your average chapter. My way of apologizing for the delay.)

The Next Day

"Waive us the labor and smite _thyself, Mortal_!"

He did _not _just tell me to…whatever the heck he just said…

This wasn't exactly water cooler conversation. Especially since it was taking place in a ring of wrecked cars and tractor engines in a rather scenic scrap yard that my train used to pass through. I don't get it. We managed to patch up that hole in the ozone, cured a form of cancer or two, and even managed to get most of the radiation out of our cell phones before the everyday mutations got inconvenient. But somebody has a bare field full of trashed cars and rotting loose parts when you can recycle the entire lot at the plant two blocks away.

How ever it got there, I was in the middle of it. Just standing in a semicircular gap near the center of it with my feet planted shoulder width and my head tilted toward my left shoulder as I peered up from under my silver bangs at what was sitting properly on the hood of the wheel-less hatchback parked/rooted directly in front of me. The guy who just told me to go smite myself.

And he was easily the ugliest piece of smite I'd ever laid eyes on.

You know how ghosts just _kinda' _look dead? Give 'em some tanning coupons, maybe an updated haircut, they'd look fine. I admit my little breath trick helps me out there, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. It's like a police line-up. One guy has a knife, the next is a junkie, third guy's a snitch, and the one in the hat is a minion of the undead.

This guy looked like he fell asleep in the bottom of a lake and woke up with bed-hair.

His skin, what I hoped was skin at least, was a varied shade of dark and light gray. Like he was still moist in some areas while the others were drying out. This gave him at that 'rotting corpse' look all the models are shooting for next season. That reminds me, I could see his ribs. Not the actual bones, but his light0black torso was so sickly looking I could actually count the ridges of his ribcage as they tried to break through the skin. He was bare to the waist. God forbid that anyone miss his bare bone chest and the veins in his bone-stretched neck.

He was wearing what could have been a pair of jeans that he found in the bottom of that same lake, after a school of fish gnawed it full of holes and made it into a pair of knee-pants. His ankles, just as unnaturally skinny as the rest of him, were crossed over the front grill of the truck as his bare feet grazed the dead soil. His toenails were a few inches long in some places, when it didn't look like they'd just snapped off entirely.

Oh yeah, he had a face. Think skull. Skull with gray canvas stretched over it with a couple green Christmas bulbs jammed into the eye sockets so they bulged out. No nose, but a perpetually cracked open mouth with cracked teeth, and bald except for a faint line over the left eye. Probably an old scar. or fungus pigmentation. rather than his actual hair.

And his voice, sounded rather well-sounded and carefully measured. Like a choir boy. This was a tad disturbing, considering he had a set of _fangs _curving over where his lower lip should have been.

…and he had friends. Cut from the same catalog, except even thinner and with less clothing. And instead of sitting on a car hood and conversing, they were unnaturally crouched on various wrecks and frames, bent down onto their bony haunches and hissing at me in stereo. There were nine, counting Choir Boy. And I got stuck in the middle of the parachute game.

Bouncing on my heels slightly, to hide the fact I was screwed like a Kennedy, I shot back from under that tilted head and raised left brow.

"…Dude…_I'm_ not the one chasing goats in the middle of the night."

The hissing got louder. These guys…didn't strike me as _human…_well, _humanoid_, they're obviously dead. I just glared off to the side at one who was on all fours, showing me his fangs from atop an overturned tractor.

"And now…you're all sitting around comparing wrist cuts."

I swung my eyes back over at their leader. His…face…thing…hadn't moved. I finished, uncrossing my arms and gently leaning my right shoulder back an inch and flexing my right wrist under the sleeve of the jacket. We locked eyes, as far as I could tell without his having pupils.

"…and now you're taunting me with Shakespeare. Buddy, just come on out and start decorating apartments."

I didn't even have the time to blink. I didn't even see him tense when I finished off the 's' at the end of it. The next thing I saw was a grey blur with two piercing green orbs in the middle of it, flying straight at my face. He'd just launched himself twenty feet in a fraction of a second. With accompanying ear-shattering scream and the sound of the wind whistling through his fangs.

…this freak was _fast…_

Too fast for me to dodge. Enough said.

…and his head landed right into and sickly cracked against my waiting forearm. He literally flipped back off of my stationary arm and hit the coffee grounds rolling against his sprawled limbs. I watched, still holding the arm up a second after he'd pounced, as his domed head thudded against a piece of broken concrete before finally settling onto his stomach, the air draining out of his lungs in a loud hiss.

Like I said. He was fast. So is a train when it hits a switch panel the wrong way. And he just got derailed.

Two seconds after his attack, and one second after my counter, I dropped the arm and sighed over at his unmoving form.

"…_Smite_…what the heck does that even mea…"

I was cut off as a pair of extremely sharp canines sank themselves heavily into the back of my neck, hitting bone. Then another pair into each shoulder, the back of my left ankle, and a full set of teeth right around the wrist the main freak had just ricocheted off of.

…I guess his little friends wanted a taste. Of _me_, apparently.

The ones in my arm and leg didn't phase me much. But the ones behind me must have hit a few nerves, imagine some one sliding a machete under the skin on your back up towards the neck where they push it all the way in.

I just couldn't stop yelling. It hurt. A lot.

No use hiding it or dressing it up, I threw my head back and screamed before my good leg gave out from the pain and I fell backwards in a heap.

When the back of my head sank into the soft mud, I knew right off something was wrong. Besides the pack of emo-vampires eating me alive and that rock in my shoe. Something wasn't right.

I was still alive.

As my own scream died off, I could hear loud hissing coming out from under me. All five of them had jumped up come from behind and must have clung to my back to get their fangs in.

And I'd just fell over…sent the whole bunch splattering into the mud under me.

For the record, I'd like to thank 'Iron Gunz' magazine and And Sherri always said being a big guy would just make me die young and make buying clothes difficult.

Well, I live in cut-off tee shirts and just squashed a bunch of wimpy blood-suckers by _sitting on them_. Take_ that_, you obsessive-compulsive little twit!

Then my view of the partly-cloud sky over my head was thrust out of the way by a hideous, screaming face lunging at my throat before I cursed and bucked my knees up between my face and his. I then finished off in a makeshift axe kick and sent the thing flying off of me before it could straddle my chest with its clawed feet.

Lesse'…that's five scrambling in the mud under me…one currently airborne…Mr. Smitey isn't moving…where are the other two?

Not gonna' stick around to find out.

Pushing off my elbows simply out of instinct, I launched myself off my back and managed to shake off the little one clamped onto my leg before I righted myself in the air and hovered over the scene, looking down with my arms spread at my sides as I counted the heads in the closely packed group of skeletal creatures. Quickly spotting the remaining two frantically circling the dazed pile of the ones that had actually gotten near me, I snapped my fists open and felt them ignite as I disgustedly spat out a piece of mud that had stuck itself against my front teeth.

"Well, good manners, sunlight and garlic didn't work…_"_

I glanced down at the green-streaked stripe of skin showing through my shredded shirt. Just peeking out from behind the remains of my clawed jacket, I could see Walt's cross shining in the post-rain sunlight. I let one eyebrow creep up, flashing back to Sam's old vampire movies before just closing my eyes and shaking my head. I snapped both fists open with a shrug, and glancing further down at the emerald ball of flame I held in each palm.

"Oh, screw it…they just end up using a flamethrower in every freakin' movie…"

It's true. Every monster movie made between 2012 and 2029, the main characters got flamethrowers halfway through. Even in the futuristic ones, and the ones that take place in the 1700s. I have never actually seen a flamethrower. And I come from a family that gives out chromed anti-tank artillery as business gifts.

These freaks tore my shirt and slashed a huge claw-mark down my chest. It's like they _wanted _to turn this into a cheap action flick.

Ten feet under me, the freaks(…what _else_ am I supposed to call them?) had finally regrouped. Into a little circle, with the now heavily bruised leader in the center. They were staring up at me with dead green eyes and their sharp jaws dropped in quite living fear. Pulling one cupped hand behind myself like a fastball pitcher from the Field of Nightmares, I just flashed the visiting team one last wink.

And the other eye slammed shut as my vision became a blinding green blur. I felt something slam into my unprotected front. It me like a bat. Next thing I knew I was literally spinning off into the air like a ragdoll as I clutched my eyes with one hand and clenched the other into a white fist to try and concentrate on fighting gravity before it threw me back into the scrap yard.

A few seconds after the shockwave passed, I threw my eyes open and instantly felt myself hovering again. I glanced down at the stretch of blue and white sky I was standing on. Side-flipping myself right-side up like a clock being wound, I kept spinning in my momentum to get a look at my surroundings.

What was left of them.

The convenient little circle of scrap I'd been addressing the local youth group in…looked like a bomb hit it. Plain and simple. Every bit of metal in the immediate area was currently red-hot and dripping down into the wet turf. Every time the makeshift molten steel hit the chilled mud, a gush of steam shot up into the air before the slight wind blew it apart. Forgetting my composure, I began softly panting through my bitter-tasting teeth as I watched the smoking blobs start to cool and darken in color as the wind cooled it slightly from white-hot to faint red.

Took me three 360 turns and a lot of squinting, but I finally confirmed that the 'vampires' were nowhere in sight. At least I didn't see anything resembling flesh out in the smelting area.

Finally alone, and undeniably confused, I slowly let my jaw drop with my face still attached to it because of how tight my teeth were clenched from the sudden G-Force.

My jacket was toast. Literally. From the waist up, I was clothed in the pale corpse of a tee shirt with that telltale claw-slash staining the front green. Draped over my shoulders and hanging off my arms were these strips of torched-looking leather. Eyes wide in disbelief, I slowly reached up and just shook my head I as brushed off the demolished leather like it was cremated dandruff. Frowning and the bright green blood seeping out through the dirty grey shirt, I took note that my black pants were mostly intact above the knees. My orange and lightly bent knees were visible, complimenting a pair of vein-studded calves whose ends were hidden in the shapeless black scraps my shoes had become.

Craning my neck forward to look myself over, I couldn't spot any injuries besides the still-bleeding puncture wounds from the vamp-tackle. Whatever just hit this place, it burned my clothes down to the stitch.

…and it didn't even give me sunburn. What the heck…?

I found myself holding my palm in front of my blood-rushed face, staring blankly at the glowing green fluid I'd wiped off of my shirt. Slowly rotating my wrist to see the back of my fingers, I felt a stabbing pain as the two punctures in the same wrist sprang to life. Almost as if it didn't want to be shown up, a buckshot-level shooting pain made itself present. And of course each of the four slashes in my bare chest seeped more fluid to make up for what I'd cleaned off. Quickly slapping the already stained hand to clutch the chest-wounds, I doubled over slightly as I hovered and just tried to collect my thoughts.

Okay. I'm floating over them, saying stuff, pulling back to start throwing fireballs…and…boom.

I got nuthin'.

"FENTON!"

Nearly snapping my neck in the process, I looked up and nearly sent my eyebrows flying off my face as my eyes focused on a distance stack of cars near the entrance of the yard. Things looked pretty solid over there, mustn't have been a wide-scale blast.

Some one was standing on the top car, waving. One squint told all.

"…Oh…"

Letting my free hand dangled down at my side, I slowly floated forward in a formal manner toward the small tower of junked cars. When I was within earshot, I yelled out with my hand still clutching the center of my chest.

"Whatever happened to '_FIRE IN THE HOLE'?"_

Standing proudly on the Ford-brand mountain, was an obviously female silhouette, tightly strapped in formed red leather and a cycle-style crimson helmet slapped around the head. Resting against one flexed leg, was an arm-sized tube with a handle sticking out of one end with a large red light flashing near the barrel. Both red-clothed arms were bent over each shoulder, each gloved hand was wedged under the helmet as if in the process of removing it.

She ignored me.

I glared for a few seconds as I hovered over, finally touching down in front of her on the edge of the hatchback-cliff while the bleeding from my chest began to slow slightly.

"Val…_Retired. _Remember that? As in not doing it anymore?"

She kept her gloves under her helmet, her arms twitching as if it struggling to do whatever she was doing. I could feel my teeth trying to crush each other.

"…you let me loose, gimme' ten little speeches about duty…then you just pop back into the office and nuke the new guy? And what the hell _was_ that Explosives? Ecto-magnetic pulse? Did you get God Himself to strike me down for that crack about the…?"

She pressed her torso forward slightly, arms still struggling under the sides of her helmet.

Was…she…?

Slowly, making a show of it to ease the pain, I raised my free hand towards her presented red dome. As my thumb touched down on the mirrored visor and my orange fingers gripped the flexishell, I sighed in mock-dissapointment.

"And you got your head, stuck in your own…"

I grudgingly concentrated, phasing the helmet right off her head and sending her back a few inches from the recoil. Without letting my face movie, I watched as a crowd of loosened corn-rows flopped down over her dark face, smacking into a line of silver piercings in one eyebrow.

That…wasn't…her…WHAT?

"…hel…met…?"

Two teal eyes snapped up at me, quickly tightening into a glare as she crossed her arms over her leather-stretching chest and just waited for it. Politely clearing my throat, I greeted.

"…Wasp."

She growled back, flipping her rebellious bangs back against her head.

"…'Fent."

I let my eyes slide closed as she slowly breathed in the burning oil-tinged air, quickly explaining.

"…My mom…_made_, me do it. _OKAY?"_

I didn't move. I heard her leather sleeves crack apart, I could almost see her hands flailing as she went on.

"I went home around noon. I needed some laundry done, and my Dad's actually home for a change."

…was it Tuesday already?

"…she drags me into the lab by my _freakin'_…"

…I censored that for you. You're welcome.

"…_nose-ring_ and makes me put on _this_…"

Smacking leather. Don't ask where she smacked, this is why I had my eyes closed.

"_COSTUME!_ Jesus…I got kicked out of the Marines because I kept burning my eyebrows off, and she wanted me to run just out and fry a bunch of…uh…"

I cleared my throat, filling in the blank.

"…Eh…vampire…ghosts…"

"Thanks. Vampire ghosts. Like it was a friggin' grocery store thing!"

Her gloved hands began waving around again. I hadn't opened my eyes.

"…this is a one-time deal! Trust me! I thought this crap was bogus, and my Dad always talked about it so much, I just blew 'em off."

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a normal American teenager. Age twenty six, three times over.

"I can't _buh-leaf_ she talked me into this. First, I find out you got this whole…"

I finished her sentence again, in that same relaxed tone.

"…paranormal crime-fighting…it's a family business…"

"…thing. I mean…_'Fent_…no offense, I kinda' thought you were…in the closet?"

Eyes still closed. Not moving.

"I mean…that's why I had you do the wedding crap. Figured you'd like that kinda' thing."

Slowly, my eyes opened a crack. As they rise to half-revealed, she flashed me a white and gold-crowned grin as she apologizes with a tilt of her dark-rowed head.

"…we 'kay?"

"…you…"

My eyes snapped to full-size, exploding into her silver-framed face.

"_Fired a freakin' hydro-bomb right under me!"_

…well…I doubt it was a hydro, but it still stung like heck.

She quickly backed out of jabbing range, still grinning out of fear. I froze in place, quaking with an eye tick. Then snapped back to a casual stance, snapping the fingers of upheld hand and watching calmly as a dark green dry-cleaning bag appeared draped over my bent arm.

She watched with silent terror and confusion as I picked it up and unzipped it in front of her, pulling out a freshly created and pressed black jacket identical to my usual one. I then threw the green bag and hanger off behind me, letting it disappear so some teenage slcaker wouldn't suffocate himself in it. I then slipped the jacket around my mostly exposed torso, zipping it up all the way to hide the lime green bloodstains blossoming along my front.

"…I suggest you run. Before my frontal lobe catches up with 'In the closet' and things will happen."

Before I even got the thing zipped up to the collar, she was gone. Nothing but a puff of light exhaust smoke hanging around on the edge of the station wagon we'd been standing on. I spied a red-tinted speck in the distance, wildly zig-zagging and barrel-rolling through the afternoon air like a moron with jet-boots.

…she _was_ a moron with jet-boots…

Watching her disappear in a direction that would take her nowhere near the city, I painfully crossed my arms and casually spat out a clump of bloody soil up onto the roof of the wagon. Notice I waited for the lady to leave first. I'm a gentlemen. With a mood disorder.

"Well…maybe this is why we never went to her house to play poker…

Sighing, I let my head sink and swing to both sides.

"And now…my saliva is boring a hole through the roof of a car…Oh, great."

…That reminds me, you'll love this. Yesterday I was talking to Aron about heavy bag springs, and he made this joke about…

…what…did…I just say…?

Arms still crossed, I pulled my head back up and locked my eyes on where my saliva had landed. My trusty eyebrow sank down as I realized that wasn't the blood loss talking.

The wagon's roof as a whole wasn't exactly sea worthy. It pretty much a gigantic rectangle of rust suspended over what was left of the interior. And on the edge closest to the empty gap of the windshield, was an irregular shaped hole in the sheet metal with a faint blue wisp of steam rising off of it.

Right where my spit had landed. I was trained in Chicago, trust me on this.

For about a minute or so, I just stared over at the sizzling depression. Eventually, acting without thinking, I held up the green-dripping I'd been clutching my chest with, and flicked it limply towards the sheet of rust.

I'd timed it just right, and a few drops of green blood landed with silent plops next to the quarter-sized hole that had just appeared.

The second the bright green liquid touched down, there was a tiny hiss and within seconds, there was now a cluster of considerably smaller holes in a row next to the larger one.

"…Sweet, mother of…"

Just to be sure, I reared back and spat again, landing it perfectly next to the last one.

This time, the slightly glowing blue liquid sat there for a moment before slowly sizzling down through the rust and falling down into the hollow interior of the car.

Standing on the far end of the hood, I just let that eyebrow line up with its twin and simply stated.

"Acidic body fluids. Oh boy."

Sapping out of it, I ignored the shooting pains and rubbed my neck. Just making the best of this pointless but slightly disturbing revelation.

"Hey! At least I know not to spit in anyone's…"

Suddenly, I all could think of was a genderless creature in a top hat clutching its eyes in pain, scrambling around a parking lot outside the arena.

"…face."

Oh.

Crap.

Well, I know _one _metrosexual ex-carnival owner who'll be in my prayers tonight…

Three Hours Later

I compacted myself tighter into the angled corner of the loft, growling under my breath like a caged animal.

Kirby just smiled wider.

She was crouched down on her haunches right in front of me, with both denim-wrapped arms behind her back as she met my razor glare with a cheery glow. When I stopped grolwing, she cracked her grin open and stated in carefully spaced English.

"…Either you choose _this…"_

Her left arm withdrew from its hiding place, brandishing a small silver canister with a push-tab contrasting with the finish on the top. Just the sight of it sent my wincing further back into the corner of my splintery cage.

Anti-bacterial spray from a first aid kit. Same stuff she insists on tagging me with every time I come home with even a scraped wrist or a cut bruise.

…I'm a member of the undead. I think. One of the perks of this is the 'healing fraction' or whatever the comics called it. I once had my back sliced open, down the middle and through the skin. Few hours later, just looked like a bad case of road-burn that I managed to hide under a red-colored shirt. The next day, it was almost gone without even a sign of scarring.

And Florence Nightingale here thinks she has to nurse my cuts so I don't get an infection.

Why? Because her father, and my uncle, was a cop. And later a federal detective. Whatever he came home with, from a deep blister on the sole of his foot to the imprint of some thug's hiking boots on his scalp, Janet was right on the spot with the family first aid kit, playing nurse and scolding him all the while.

Must be genetic.

When I was around five, Uncle Carlos had his 'incident'. Fifteen rounds to the torso, went right through the vest. Odds of survival? He had his Last Rites. With Kirby and Janet each holding a hand, only holding back their tears to soothe him.

…I think _they_ were the reason he gave the Grim Reaper a simple hand gesture, and walked away with nothing but one hell of a scar job under his shirt and an early retirement summons in his front pocket.

He gave it all up. In his prime, with so many cases under his belt and on his desk, top of his game. For his family. Sometimes I wish we were actually related.

Is this why Kirb' hates it so much whenever I play vigilante? Probably.

"…or _this. _Pick one. Now."

I was snapped back into reality as she unveiled what was in hand number two.

Dangling by a frayed larnyard from her right wrist, was a dented and dull-shining thermos with green trim around the lid. I stared at it for a few seconds, forcing myself to look away from her ivory watermelon slice of a smile before I just turned in place, giving her access to a half-circle of puncture wounds circling my left shoulder blade. I flexed my jaw at the loft's tight corner, already dreading how much that stuff itched as my grandmother's voice rang out from somewhere behind us.

"I _knew _I brought that thing for a reason…"

Light giggling from behind my spread shoulders, accompanied by another stinging blanket of whatever was packed into that misting bottle. Kirinia called back over own, clothed shoulder to where my grandmother was making herself comfortable in a denim bean-chair. I could hear the faint crackling as she fingered through a yellowed hardcover she'd picked off a guitar case.

If my ears were right and I'd traced the page cracking correctly, she was flipping through 'A Study in Scarlet'. The first Sherlock Holmes story.

_Crap_, that stuff itches…

"Yeah…Alan, why didn't you ever use one of these things?"

I kept my mouth bolted shut as Sam answered for me. I knew she would.

"Not his style. And he always forgets to _bring_ the dang thing…"

…why was she still here? Aren't grandmothers supposed to just appear briefly at family functions, then they scuttle back to the retirement home to catch a reality show rerun from back in the day?

Kirb' laughed, letting each Latin 'HA!' echo in my nearby eardrums. For the last two days, she's laughed along with everything Sam says. Whether she's just joking or truly insulting, Samantha has a new fan.

Maybe it has to do with their conspiring against me. Either that or Sam has connections in the jelly-bean smuggling section of Columbia. One of those.

Speaking of which, this ended my streak of not even existing on the physical plane whenever either of them was around. I'd swooped into the loft to try and find some band-aids to cover twenty three open wounds with, and forgot to check the house first to see where everyone was. And there I was, at thermos-point. Trapped with my shirt off and barefoot, even though I could probably have phased myself right through the boards and hit 240 they even saw me move.

…Idiot…

"How's the summer job going, Dame'?"

My eye twitched at a knothole that some one had stashed full of gum wrappers. I sighed loud enough for my grandmother to hear.

"Same old. How's junior college?"

A book slammed closed. Followed by sharp, but honest laughter.

"…it's first through third. But these kids are more mature than your father ever was. When I told them about my being a Fenton, one little darling asked why I wasn't wearing a bubble-wrap jumpsuit."

Sam is teaching again.

No, not high school. When she first said she wanted back in, and that retirement was going to drive her insane, I couldn't exactly tell her about…you know…

So, I tried something creative. I suggested she try the younger kids. Kids who weren't likely to stash ecto-zookas in their lockers. So, she spent a month doing a summer-course at a fifth-grade class at some Catholic private school, just to see how it was. She loved the kids, except I'm sorry to say that she is _not,_ a nun. Public school just started down in Florida, and she bought her way into a part-time position as 'The Egypt Lady' as the kids call her. She annexed an empty classroom, filled it with one of her archeology collections, and once every day of the week she sees a different classroom from lunch until the last bell rings.

And those kids don't want to leave when it does. She's the only teacher who _admits_ she's a witch.

I felt a smacking tap, right on the smooth surface of my tattoo. This was the usual signal to turn around. As I tried to force my face into a pleasant expression, a resonating thud rattled the loft floor.

A brief second later, one of my sisters' heads popped up between the runs of the ladder with an oddly-shaped but plain-wrapped parcel somehow balanced on her darkening brunette head. Two vacant blue eyes swung around the elevated nook.

There wasn't much to see.

Sam was still vegging out on the bean chair, leafing through an obviously upside-down hardcover. Kirby was apparently sitting on the legs of an overturned stool, tuning a guitar which she was holding in a left-handed grip rather than right. Hendrix style. And I was stiffly reclining against the wall in my jeans and a deep green hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled down to my eyebrows. All three of us were staring off into space happily, looking so casual we'd get tackled by security in an airport terminal.

The blank stare gave her away before her red sweater did. Kerri. Balancing a huge parcel on her head like it wasn't even there, the doctors said that's her 'special talent'.

Seeing nothing out of the usual, she awkwardly hopped up onto the floorboards and letting the package slide forward and fall into her waiting hands. She practically bunny-hopped over to where Sam was smiling down at her reading material, which must have been designed for dyslexics. That chirpy voice, so proud of something none of us could see.

"Grandma! I found the _thing_!"

Sam's head shot up a bit too quickly to appear calm. She kept smiling.

"…uh…_Huh_?"

Kerri bounced in place, still holding the mystery package between her hands.

"The_ thing_! The _thing!"_

Over in the corner, I was peering out from under my newly formed hoodie with one eyebrow hidden in the hood. Sam stared over at her…confused…blood descendent for few moments before simply snatching the rectangular object and plopping it on the lap of her black skirt. As she tore through the frayed brown paper with a single manicured nail, Kirby glance down at her flipped guitar and quite visually realized she was simply squatted down in a sitting position a few inches above the stool, which she'd knocked over onto its side when she'd pounced across the loft into casual mode.

By the Sam managed to peel all the old paper off of what Kerri had brought up, my cousin and I were standing behind the bean chair looking down with matching blank expressions. Eventually, Sam and I relaxed when we saw it wasn't ticking or breathing. The Cuban, however, stayed confused.

Without a warning or even a sigh, Sam threw the thing over her shoulder into my stomach as she stood up and planted a white hand on Kerri's shoulder. As I fell to the floorboards, clutching by already injured stomach in silent pair, I heard her compliment.

"That reminds me, I need something from my bag."

Draping an arm around her granddaughter for much-needed guidance, Sam ushered both of them down the ladder, flashing Kirby a rolling eye before disappearing into the lower level of the barn.

After the door swung shut, and a reassuring glance off the ledge, Kirby sighed down at my broken form.

"…that girl needs headgear more than anyone at the gym does."

Crossing her arms and shaking some stray hairs out of her face, she glanced over at me as I pulled myself to my feet, pulling the unwrapped package out of my abdominals with a grunt. Before I could toss it over the ledge, Kirb' snatched it from me and nearly fell over in the process. She let herself fall back into the nearby bean chair, clutching it to her chest for a few seconds before letting out a long breath and asking.

"…So, what's this 'Thing'?"

…it was a huge freakin' book. She was holding the dang thing, for crying out loud, could she save the jokes for when my lungs were working?

Like I said, it was a book. About the size of a coffee table deal, but around six inches thick with uneven pages and ancient red leather instead of fancy synthetic suede like most books you dig up nowadays. For some reason, it'd been wrapped up with string and paper to keep it fresh. The now torn and crumpled wrapping was now tangled up in the front pocket of my hoodie. I went to tear it off, when I caught myself and simply let the shirt disappear without a trace, letting the ball of twine and ripped paper drop to the floor in front of me.

The Ecto-hoodie. Coming to stores next fall season, only at Abracrummy & Fenton.

My ear caught something unusual when the whole mess touched the floor. A loud click, plastic on wood. S I bent down to brush my hand through the mess and see what it was, I mumbled over to golden girl with the almighty old book on her lap.

"…long story. That's technically the reason I left home way back, Kerri must have found it under a table leg or something."

She cracked open the stale binding, looking at the front page as I wrapped my hand around something and pulled it out, shaking off the string hanging off it.

"…Is that…?"

I raised the finger-sized object in front of my face, staring in disbelief as she commented without noticing my discovery.

"You went to Chicago because of a huge-ass book?"

…if I hadn't been staring at the little knick-knack that had been hidden in the wrapping, I would have asked how she knew I went to Chi-town with Walt. You know, so she doesn't figure out I was a fly on the wall of that conversation.

"…_Alonso¿Tu vivo?"_

I heard her hair swish against the old front page as she looked over and saw me in my trance.

"…okay, now what's _that?"_

Another obvious one.

It was a pocketknife. That's all.

Just one of the little things a hundred years of technological advancement and social reform couldn't change. A little sandwich of a tool, with two plastic sides smoothed on each end to slide comfortable into a pocket or belt loop. Usually, it's a shade of dark red, just like the Swiss Army made 'em a hundred something years ago. But this one had glossy black sides, with a tiny logo painted on each side of one end. I stared at the tiny red cross that marked it as a true Swiss, before flipping it between two fingers and watching as the tiny Swedish Flag was replaced with a perfectly printed 'F' in dark green plastic. Between the two halves, laid the little stack of metal slices that composed each little tool. I flicked the miniature key-loop dangling from the built-in groove on the top end, admiring how the black finish that had been oxidized over the stainless steel guts of the knife.

It was just a pocketknife. With black handles instead of red, all the steel on it had been oxidized to a dull black with a special torch treatment, and there was a Fenton symbol on it. But just looked like a pocketknife that you'd probably find in a corporate gift set or in a cheap 'survival' kit little boys play with after seeing their first war movie. This was probably the only 'Fenton' tool in the family history that didn't end up exploding itself on activation or spraying it's creator with plumbing excess.

I found myself sitting cross-legged in front of Kirby's sack of a chair, still rotating the tiny tool between two fingers. I answered, starting to come down from it.

"…Uh…it's this thing I made. When I was a kid."

I stared into the slightly mirrored surface of the plastic handle, trying to make out my pale reflection in it. Then two brown fingers appeared above my own, slipping it out of my grip like it was a weed being pulled.

I watched with tight eyes as she reclined back into her chair, still holding the gigantic book in her lap as she examined the little toy the same way I had. I rested a hand on each knee, ignoring my still-healing bare torso as she carefully unfolded the tiny black blade from its hinge with a stubby fingernail, smiling widely at how small it was. It wasn't even a full-size one, it was maybe two inches long if you round up.

"Cute! Very preteen Rambo. You do it with a kit or something? Or did you just buy it and spray paint it?"

Looking off to the side from under my bangs, I muttered.

"…my folks sent me down to the lab…said if I didn't invent something useful, I'd have to do volunteer work for the UN for publicity. Whole basement full of supertechnology, I come out with a pocketknife. Copied it after this one Walt used to cut gauze off in the gym. Except I forgot the corkscrew."

She didn't bat an eye, she was too busy smiling at the tiny pair of scissors with the spring between the handles.

"Really. Then why aren't you carrying it around, getting all angsty over the old guy every time you use it to get a splinter?"

"…Because I haven't seen the stupid thing since the day I put it together. Kerri must have used it to tie a knot together"

"…Oh. 'Splains it."

She clapped her other hand on the book with an echoing smack, still playing with the little knife as she asked.

"What about this?"

I shrugged, careful not to move the skin on my back at all as I just sat there scanning the loft with dull eyes.

"Well…I was walking up onto the porch, to show my mom the knife before Jim slapped a laser-sight on it…and, that book just came out of nowhere and cold-clocked me in the side of the head."

She stopped filing her thumb-nail with the microscopic file, slowly fixing her usual stare on me. I shot back an honest nod.

"…yeah. Kerri said she threw it out her window or something."

She snapped the file back in, then drew out the bottle opener and used it to clean under that same nail.

"So, walking along, book hits you…"

I sighed in remembrance.

"My first concussion. I was out for three hours."

"That made you leave?"

Unfolding my legs and stretching them out in front of me, I corrected.

"Nah. Thing is, it hit me pretty hard. Kept' getting hallucinations, least that's what my mom told me."

She'd finished cleaning the nail. She flipped it between her fingers for a few seconds before flipping it into the front pocket of her denim blouse. She then focused her attention on the book, tracing the title with her newly manicured nail.

"Whatcha' mean? Like, colors? Lights? Noises?"

Slowly pushing myself up onto my feet, cracking my neck as I did so, I turned around to face the ladder. I had my back to her for a few seconds, hoping she'd take the hint. She didn't. So, I broke down and grumbled.

"Eh…more like elaborate sight gags and pink and green talking objects everywhere. It was nuts. My parents kept' saying it was just the concussion. Screw that. I hopped the next train with Walt after Kerri got heat-vision off the internet."

Not exactly enjoying the conversation, I hopped onto the top rung of the ladder and started down, getting my head past the top bar before Kirby whistled for me to look at her. I did so grudgingly, acknowledging the blank, slightly sympathetic stare she was fixing me with.

"Alan…how much blood did you lose, again?"

That same dull stare. I rattled off in a practiced monotone, same tone I had always used when it came to this subject.

"…That's not the point, Kirby. I still don't know what was going on. I'm not crazy. Never was."

Slowly, her expression went from blank yet mock-understanding, to completely blank. There was a sharp clatter of bone on wood, and she was now rolling on the floor in front of me, trying to choke back the laughter.

Eight Minutes Thirty Eight Seconds Later

…Finally, she stopped. She'd rolled over thirty six times, and was now stretched out full-length on her back with her hair wrapped around her neck like a scarf. She reached up and wiped her eyes with the backs of both hands.

I was still hanging on the top section of the ladder, looking at her with that same blank frown. After she got to her feet, she stepped over toward the ladder and plain out jumped over me. Before I could react, I felt her legs wrap around my waist from behind, she'd just hopped on my back like I was a part of the ladder. She spoke into my right ear, resting her chin on my bare shoulder as she caught her breath

"Whoo…Man…Sorry…it's just, that whole thing with Kerri's ferrets…Hilarious!"

My left twitched. Just once. She went on, holding back a giggle.

"It's a great in-joke! You guys all talk about it like it's nothing, but _you, _you're all alone in the corner being all dramatic. It's funny. It's a nice break from the ghost thing, ya' know?"

She then clambered down my back, onto the ladder itself. She yelled up to me when her bare feet hit the floor.

"Don't forget to get your costume together! We're leaving in an hour. I gotta' go say a rosary so Han shoots first. And so I don't get frostbite on the highway."

I listened to her footsteps, then the thud of the door. I was still clinging to the top of the ladder, staring straight ahead at the ancient and gargantuan book that she'd left propped up against the beanbag. I could make out it's engraved title in the warm light of the loft-window. I mouthed it to myself, a habit I have that stems from my old literacy problems.

_Da' Rules_

Slowly, a smirk crept up into my left cheek. As I spread my feet and slid down the ladder with my hands loosely gripping the poles, I broke out into a chuckle.

"Pft…she _fell _for that…?"

I pushed off the rungs half-way down, landing in a shock-absorbing crouch before dusting myself off and shuffling toward the door, laughing quietly at my sick joke.

She actually fell for it.

I've never even _seen _that little knife before. She seriously thinks I _made _it?

…But seriously. Something wasn't right about those ferrets. And remind me to stop by the blood bank after the movie. That was the stupidest prank I've ever pulled, and I thought it was funny. That's even weirder than those heat-vision hallucinations and how somebody misspelled the title of that book that Kerri threw out the window.

Kerri doesn't even have a window in her room.

Five Hours Later

…Greedo shot first. Enough said.

It gets worse. Much, much worse.

The crowd wasn't as booming as usual, even though the place had been packed. Everyone was in full-costume, and just dragging their feet through the theater's main entrance out onto the empty street. Kirby and I were on the tail end of a church group of Clone Troopers with their faith's symbol on their helmets.

Kirby wasn't the happiest person there. She was stooped over as if the weight of those ear-muffs was too much for her slender frame. She had her elbows folded tightly over her metallic bikini top, her pencil eyebrows nearly touching each other from how tense her face had become half-way through the movie.

I, on the other hand, was feeling pretty good. I'd upgraded my costume from 'Random Jedi' to all out cosplay. I went the whole deal. I let Kirb' half-iron my hair and put some temporary bleach in it. I had the whole black synthetic leather/lightweight tunic deal. Even had the scar through the eye the glove on my right hand. Would have been great, if I didn't have that same cheap, obviously plastic flashlight hanging from my belt. I had my arms loosely crossed and tucked into my sleeves royally as I stared ahead at the crowd of Clones and tried to comfort my slave girl.

"…It's not _that_ much of a change…"

She stayed silent. She kept tapping her way next to me in those gold heels, trying not to trip on her full-length skirt that made the top section of the costume seem taunting. I tried to smile without screwing up the fake scar.

"So what? So instead of the bikini, they had her wear a form-hiding cloak…"

She hissed, barely moving her lips.

"In the _desert!"_

I rolled the eye that hadn't been wounded in the Clone Wars.

"Kirb', the slave bikini was offensive. Now, girls who _don't_ have your figure…and personality… can be…!"

A threatening hiss from the now-inaccurate costumed fan.

"…oh, the _other _fans…who aren't willing to go the extra mile! To abandon all shame for theatrical accuracy! To have bare bronze wires, frozen right onto their…!"

The rest of that sentence was muffled by the gloved hand clamped over her mouth. She ignored the fact I'd gagged her, she just kept complaining into the hand I'd swung over to censor this for the younglings. I sighed through my teeth.

"Yeash…just airbrush a shirt onto Carrie Fisher, and everyone is…EWOK!"

Forgetting my foul-mouthed comrade entirely, I acted on reflex and ripped the flashlight off its belt loop. In one fluid motion, I swung it out in front of me and sent a specified length of ecto-energy preojecting out through the lamp, a perfect offensive stance.

Kirby, pausing her rant in freeze-frame, glanced back at where I'd stopped walking and snapped.

"Will ya' stop doing that! Geez, it's just a midget making the best of it! _We've been over this!"_

Slowly, coming down the adrenaline rush, I 'deactivated' the flashlight and threw it back onto my belt, turning to yell right back at her as the other fans just kept walking. Nobody even noticed my little secret identity slip-up, this slave outfit thing had them _that_ upset.

"…it's a _childhood phobia!"_

A whining squeal cut into our argument, causing both my cousin and I to slowly look down to see who was talking.

"…and you're the _worst _fan, EVER!"

…standing in front of me, so low to the ground I could see Kirby without seeing the top of his shaved head, was a younger lad wearing a similar costume to mine. Except he'd shaved his head and slapped it full of fake scars and rubber gore. He was glaring up at me, with a much more realistic eye-scar, and jabbing a black-gloved finger up at my neck as he stated.

"…his saber was _blue, _you stupid grunt! And nice _flashlight!"_

…did he just call me…?

"What kinda' fan _are _you? You're too big to be _him! _You're making _me _look bad! Why not be a wookie, you ugly…!"

There was a flash of green, and my flashlight was suddenly swinging on its loop as if it'd just been used.

And the chubby little fanboy was pointing up at me with a smoking wrist stump where his hand had been.

He was stunned for a second. Then he was clutching his detached limb, screaming his lungs out.

"MY HAND! MYYYY HAAAANNND!"

Then, his flesh-colored and very real hand popped out of the smoking sleeve, reached down and picked up the severed black hand I'd just sliced off. He then waved the smoking and burnt-tire smelling fake hand at me as I walked off toward the street with an arm around my slave girl. Some guys in brown robes were giving her the eye, she just tucked herself into my underarm, and they found some one else to stare at.

"…that was a _limited edition_ cybernetic replica! You ruined it! It was signed by Lucas's pool guy!"

Kirby looked back over her shoulder and past my dark-clothed arm, sneering back at him.

"Geez, you're whiny enough to be _him. _Face it, you don't got the high ground, Shortie!"

A few minutes later, Kirby got herself settled behind me on the bike, apologizing for her outburst. I peeled off the single black glove, stashing it under my belt next to my flashlight as I shook my head at her apology. She was too busy adjusting the back of her outfit to pay attention, but I said it anyway.

"Hey. You got ticked because now, you don't have an excuse to wear that outfit."

I twisted the ignition, hearing the bike purr to life under us.

"Me? I flipped out over a puppet. And sliced off some arrogant punk's arm. Let's call it even."

Who was weirder? The vampires in the junkyard, or the nerds outside the theater?

Seriously. My flipping coin went down a vent. I'm stumped.

Author's Notes.

Yes. Before he was a fighter, a boxer, a Danny-wannabe, and a Cuban, Alan was the only person in the family who wondered where she got those ferrets. To this day, he wonders how a mild concussion, from that book that fell out of the sky, directly onto their doorstep, caused those hallucinations. Will he ever get any answers? He's a true detective, a man of pure fact and natural instinct. Therefore, he's even LESS likely to figure it out. Next chapter, we're back to plot, I'm glad to have gotten all this out of my system. Also, I owe Lessien the reviews and page hits, check out her art page, those illustrations of hers saved me from having nothing taped on the wall behind this desk except a signed Rocky poster and that human skull. Thanks for reading, further and repetitive apologies, review if you have the time.Also, if any fans of that un-named series were offended, you have to admit you were asking for it. I mean...C'mon. You guys don't even have a six-film box set out yet.


	32. Chapter 32

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

(Pre-Note: Two weeks…Can't apologize enough, or often enough, or to the extent I truly want to apologize. Here's the chapter, next update will be sooner, simply out of rational default.)

The Next Day

"…Nice try. But I saw you sparring at that Spic's school uptown."

If I weren't so forcefully bent into a casual slouch, I would have lunged right over the desk and swiped that gigantic frown up into the ceiling fan.

You don't find dated racial slurs like these _anywhere, _you really have to look for them. And it'd taken me a straight week to track down the mouth behind that insult.

She wasn't a pleasant woman. One look was all you needed, but an hour with her was enough to confirm the obvious.

I'd put her around five eight, maybe shorter. She had a body that you can only get from a lifetime of athletics. Slightly wide shoulders protruding from a muscled if not slightly bony frame. She was showing it off with a two-piece device with tight black sleeves going down to the palm of each hand, and matching pant legs down above her bare feet. You'd think that would set the tone, but the middle of the outfit had been cut away to leave a rather tight-looking and extremely toned stomach in plain sight. Even for her older age, her midriff looked like something Kirby would hiss about when it strutted past the looser, inferior stomachs of the common folk.

This dame had better posture than most presidential candidates. She was carefully folded into a plain metal chair planted behind an equally Spartan gray desk and closed laptop computer. She'd been sitting there like a shame-inducing statue for about a half hour, looking over with eyes that were by default ice cold but not so lifeless as to miss a detail. You'd think eyes so dead but criticizing would be a unique color to compensate, but they were just flat brown set back in two vein-darkened whites. Both grey-white hands were hidden in each black underarm, and she hadn't even reached up to adjust the iron-tight gray bun she'd mashed every hair on her head into. The Led-tubes hanging from intervals on the unfinished ceiling made her faint gray eyebrows barely visible.

And some one ran her face through the wrong wash cycle. She looked like heck. That is if heck was at the bottom of the ugly tree she fell out of, hitting every branch along the way and landing in a wood chipper, and then being spat out like compost into said heck.

Every square inch of her grey-pale face was deeply wrinkled. She had small canyons running from the corners of her lips down to her nonexistent chin, and crow feet around each eye that could have belonged to a condor. To make things worse, her pale and leather-like complexion was marked with several shapeless but eye-catching blemishes left over from when tanning beds could be legally owned by some one without a degree in skincare. And they should have used this face to prove exactly why that law came into place.

I don't understand it, either. She had this gorgeous, youthful washboard just soaking in the stares, and this aging hag mask glaring over it waiting for some one to look up.

And she just called my Aunt Maria a Spic.

The bright side? I'd gotten better at disguises.

I gotta' give my aunt with the hair salon most of the credit. For thing, she didn't mind my crashing in and asking for a 'jock-cut', without an appointment or even having talked to her in three weeks. My trademark free-falling hair had been tamed like a wild horse. She hadn't actually cut it, thankfully. She just grouped it into several dozen rows of gel-shiny spikes ending off in a row of dangling black thorns looping over my forehead where my bangs used to be.

Underneath my new and hopefully temporary makeover, I'd assumed a two-dimensional personality that belonged on those old baseball cards, the ones they used to make before everything went digital and mp3-compatible. I saw a box in a museum once, and this one in particular gave me the idea for this guise. I took my Fenton-jaw, which already reeked of football(…Manly-Ball…Damn you, ESSPN!) and general jock-ness, and clenched it enough to square out my face a bit more. Add a quarter cup of glassy staring, half-flared nostrils and the fact I'd grunted out the entire alphabet since I'd walked in. I even borrowed a ritzy college sweatshirt from Aron. He went to a local jock college, and he was the only guy at the gym whose clothes I could fit into.

I was silently dwarfing the standard-sized chair on the other side of the steel desk, with my hands laying limp in my lap as I kept up my blank stare.

Yes, I was screwed, but I was a screwed dumb jock.

"Uh…wasn't me…"

At least I kept the question mark off the end.

One of her upper wrinkles smoothed itself out. Maybe she was raising an eyebrow behind that train wreck of a complexion, who knows. She had a sharpened, crystal clear growl of a voice.

"Right. So, there's more than one of you. It's an ugly country, I wouldn't be surprised…"

I just grunted again. Same tone. Slowly, the wrinkle reappeared as if crawling out of another. She now sounded less accusing. Like she was giving me a parking ticket instead of a lethal injection.

"Uh huh. And you want to train here?"

I grunted again, not even putting any accent into it. She slowly withdrew her left hand from her underarm, like she was drawing a knife. Slowly, she fanned it around at the rest of the building.

"…do you think this is a daycare center, Punk?"

Actually, I thought it was an S&M club with a cheap décor budget.

Don't ask how I found this place. For one thing, who ever built it wanted enough privacy to house an extended family of nudists. I think this used to be a dance studio, until they bricked over the full-wall windows on two sides and bolted shock-tiles over the entire floor. My aunt's studio had the same thing, with windows, so I felt somewhat at home. She had me take off my shoes when I walked in, and I was gently testing the ultra-springy padding stretched over the foundation.

I learned to fight feeling this stuff under my toes. Even though boxing gyms require shoes and socks to avoid fume-induced pandemic, I never forgot how to manipulate my toes with every movement. Some people clench their toes when they're nervous. Me? I tap my first two toes together when I throw the big right hook. Walt wanted to register that punch as a lethal weapon with the police department, and the whole time I was wiggling my toes to get it started.

As comfortable as the floor was, the walls kept catching the corners of my eyes whenever the woman didn't check where my pupils were pointed.

This was definitely a martial arts school of some breed. If the padding and lack of furniture didn't give it away, the walls did. Not only were they unpainted and adorned with group portraits and dusty trophies, every square foot of drywall had an exotic weapon bolted to the wall in uniform wooden racks.

I don't mean a couple wooden swords and a pair of nunchuku hanging on a nail like in Kirby's coffee-smelling domain. I mean this woman had at least a hundred extremely sharpen and probably illegal martial arts weapons on the walls, each with a tiny padlock hanging off the rack each one hung on. I don't mean a bunch of swords. I mean she had everything from old samurai belt-knives to black-oxide machetes just hanging around looking pretty. This place was the size of a gutted library, if you need to imagine how much wall space these things covered.

Bit of a complexion problem, six-pack abs, and her 'school' is wallpapered with gigantic cutting implements.

Think she's married? Maybe she has a little leather and chain-link apron, has a cookie recipe passed down from her mom, and cuts out grocery coupons with a freakin' _katana_?

…daycare center...? This calls for something other than a grunt.

"…Nah, Ma'am."

Before she could even move a wrinkle, she was standing. I hadn't even seen her move, but there she was, standing with her arms at her sides and her dark eyes angled down at where I slouched. She mechanically jerked her neck over to the empty expanse of black padding that took up most of the converted storefront building.

"Let's see what you can do, Maggot."

…does that mean 'Stand up and follow me' or 'Slam my head down into my own desk and use my unconscious body as a ventriloquist dummy to parody myself'?

I'm going with door number one.

I quickly stood up, carefully stepping/tripping over to where she was waiting in the center of the mat with her arms behind her slim back.

How does she get around so fast? She doesn't strike me as a perky coffee addict. Maybe she has her own little bitchy teleportation wormhole.

Quickly, I gently swaggered over in front of her and made a small show of swishing my jeans. This was body language for 'My mom says I'm real handsome'. That mysterious wrinkle of hers had vanished again, and before it could reappear she eased herself back into a wide stance with both hands open in front of her. I assumed a similar, and purposely less alert stance as she explained.

"I don't train 'sport fighters' here…"

…sport fighters? Is boxing a sport?

"…I train…_real fighters."_

Without saying exactly what we were doing, or even changing her breathing, she launched the ball of her right foot right at my chin.

Didn't see her move. She's fast, but I've seen faster.

Instead of simply weaving, I stepped back and crossed my arms in front of myself. My aunt called this the dead-man's block.

I expected her to take advantage of it, just rush me and knock me on my ass to see I wasn't a threat.

Instead, she just kept that missed kick going and sent it arcing right into the front buckle of my wrinkled jeans.

…And she made contact.

She could have just split my ribcage with an axe, it would have been gentler. The first little signal that her kick had landed was a bolt of searing heat right up through my spine to the space behind my forehead.

Stage two. Actual pain. My top-heavy and textbook block stance shriveled into itself as I fell onto one knee, letting both hands slam down against the spongy floor to keep myself from fully collapsing. I managed to keep my face from showing it, but I hadn't been expecting it.

We never are, we male creatures.

And, the single-move sparring session ended as such. Me, crouched down digging my nails into the mat, panting through the pain, as she just stood over me shaking her head like it was on a swivel. Through the blood pounding through my head, I could hear a sharp sigh.

"…No cup? Well, you definitely had something to protect…"

From my spot on the floor, I saw the pair of black legs step closer, loosening out of the stance slightly.

"Then again…I saw you at Maxwell Arena last year."

Back down on the floor, my breathing cut off like she'd kicked the hose out of the wall.

Maxwell…last year…

March eighth. Heavyweight fight number thirty five. Stan 'Stonewall' Jackson. Boxer-Puncher style, always rounded off the corners when he was getting tired. Actually went down to the cards, I won it in the later rounds after Walt slapped me across the face and told me to start blocking. One of my highlight fights.

…and she'd _been there…_

…_Walt_…Mind helping me out here? Would it kill you to take some time off from shooting billiards with Christ himself or whoever it was you believed in?

Upon hearing the name of the seaside stadium, I jerked myself to my feet like a resurrected string puppet.

Suddenly, the pain wasn't that important.

She watched with a stoically wrinkled face as I dropped my slouched jock posture, standing up to my full height despite the still-surging pain running up my torso. I snapped my shoulders back, cracking them out of the slouch with a soft click before letting my arms dangle at each side in their usual position. One last neck crack to add another inch to my height, and I dropped the act entirely and looked down at where she was glaring up at me.

Time to really use those acting lessons.

"Well, so much for layin' low…"

She didn't move. She just growled back, in the most civilized way possible.

"I _knew_ you were a pro. The eyes screwed you over. And you don't look like a 'Phantoon', way too pale."

…should have worn sunglasses. Wimpy, non-badass sunglasses, like the prescription ones you see senior citizens wearing.

Wait, 'Phantoon' is an actual _name_?

In a silent blur of black and grey motion, she had her back turned to me. I watched her squared shoulders gently bounce in place as she walked over to that lone desk just sitting in the corner beside the gigantic stretch of black floor. Her sharp growl echoed back against the weapon-adorned walls.

"So, a prize fighter. Why the interest in bounty hunting?"

Introducing, 'Athena Davidson', so her card says.

She runs a…uh…it's not exactly s dojo or studio. More of a very, very private training complex for…specialized individuals. Hence the architecture of the place, the seclusion, and the insane amount of sharp objects.

I wasn't applying to a new gym. I was doing a interview for an underground establishment whose members count their clients by carving a notch onto something.

Yeah. This freak trains a large number of 'bounty hunters', nowadays we just call them hired arms, in the art of plain out dirt-fighting and the more obscure self defense methods. You know. Fire-arms. Sharp objects. Highrise balconies.

For instance, the guy who gave me this address? He's on death row.

The CSI team never figured out how he got that guy's neck to _do _that…I mean, anyone with good dexterity can do a square knot, but a granny knot?

That's one fancy mob-killing.

And the lady who supposedly taught him how to do it took a seat once again at her plain-built desk and slid open the hidden top drawer. I casually loped over, plopping down in that guest seat again and sighing.

"…Just need a few…pointers."

Crossing my arms, slowly switching over from jock ignorance to classic boxer-arrogance.

Who said I was done acting?

I leered over at her, letting my eyebrows tighten up in a friendly manner as I said through a smile.

"Now that we know each other…how 'bout we talk 'lessons'?"

First she spends thirty minutes rattling off every way she could kill some one. Then she kicks me in the groin and says to drop the act. Now we're talking lethal combat lessons.

She started carefully ruffling through the top drawer, just nodding in my direction. She confirms.

"Sure, I could use a slugger. Most of my boys are knife-lovers. You'll be a nice change of pace."

…yes, hearing that that made me feel sick. Not that I could show it.

She was signing me on as a killer in training, and I'd be a nice change of pace because I'd be more inclined to beatings than slicing.

…suddenly, my eyes were locked on the low-profile silver box sitting on the corner of her desk. When her dull eyes swung up to see what I was doing, I was simply smiling at her like the cocky moron she'd made me out to be. Her dark orbs fell back down to the opened drawer as she asked without moving her lips, finally treating me like a human being.

She knew I was in the business. That was human to her.

"So, where'd you get my name?"

Examining my fingernails under the harsh white lighting, I shrugged.

"Oh…we've met before actually."

She didn't move, but the ruffling sounds coming from the drawer subsided slightly. I finished, clicking two nails together as I folded both hands behind my neck and finished.

"Where was it…Oh yeah! Casper High, right?"

…I think she remembered me.

Just a guess.

Didn't even see her hand move. The only thing that told me she'd move was three sudden noises. Like water plopping into a bucket, but without the echo.

Right before my chair fell back against the sweat-smelling mat, I got one last good look at her. She was still looking down at the drawer, not even looking at me.

And clutched in the hand she'd been ruffling with, still letting out a wisp of steam, was a streamlined handgun. Almost pocket-sized, with a dull silver finish that matched the desk and chairs. No wonder, she'd had it in that drawer the whole time.

Hey, and she had a silencer.

When she heard me hit the floor, she simply placed it back into the drawer and continued ruffling for whatever she'd been looking for. From my newfound resting place, I heard her slide it shut as she scolded the empty place in front of her desk with a monotone.

"…Every…time…. Every time."

I heard her chair slide back, I hissed out a breath and loudly clapped my hand over the pierced cotton of the sweater.

"I try to make a name for myself, and it all comes back to high school. Too bad, you were one of the better ones."

Slow, almost dawdling steps coming around the desk. She was taking her time before she admired her handiwork.

Giving me time to stop breathing.

"…And now I have to skip an appointment to dump you off in a ditch. Thanks a lot."

…that same damn monotone. Unfeeling. She finally got around the desk, I looked up at her and saw she was staring up at the ceiling as if looking for a burnt bulb.

Could she be any more casual about this?

"I'll give you this much. You're not a screamer."

Slowly, with a light sigh that sounded like it came out of a straw, she looked down at where I lay.

"…But in the end, you're still…"

She didn't move. As usual.

She just stood there, arms behind her back, weight shifted to one slender leg. Staring down at where I'd fallen after the bullets took me down.

There was nothing but a toppled steel chair, lying flat on its back legs, with three smoking black pellets embedded in the chromed backrest.

She let the sentence finish with a stunned hiss.

"…dead."

…wait, _where was the body?_

And just like that, she lost it.

She went from a mechanical, perfectly engineered gazelle to a hyperventilating woman sprawled on all fours, bent over the smoking chair with her leathered face going pale as she stared with narrowing eyes at the wasted bullets.

She cursed. Just once, that's all she needed.

Just as suddenly, she snapped her head back up, whipping it in all directions as she began breathing through her mouth to control the increase in blood pressure.

She looked everywhere. The wall of blades, the single steel door on the far side of the building, under the desk, back down at the empty chair.

And finally, she looked up.

Right before I sent my readied fist into her slackened jaw, I could see my newly materialized reflection in her pupils.

Just a very solid-looking shadow, leaning over her. With two green pinpricks staring down where the eyes should have been,

Lights out.

Seven Minutes Later

Every time I see a soap opera character flick their eyes open out of a ten-year coma, I fear for the human race.

With all the time I've spent unconscious or generally incapacitated, waking up can be worse than the actual knockout. You don't just wake up yawning, wondering what happened. You slowly realize that you survived whatever hit you and eventually start to feel your extremities and realize your eyes are closed.

If you don't have a trainer, or anyone for that matter, talking to you when you start to come back, it can get scary. Walt was the first fighter I've met who wasn't cremated or planning on getting cremated. Sure, cemetery plots are expensive with how the property taxes are going, but when you spend ten minutes in the dark not being able to move your eyelids…you may want to skip the coffin and six feet of sod. Just in case.

She didn't wake up like a soap character, nor did she drift back like most of my old opponents. She just jerked violently out of stillness, thrashing for a second before settling back into position and breathing a bit shallower. A few noiseless moments later, her stock-brown eyes fell open. They didn't glance around or even focus, the fact she was hanging upside-down just resulted in them falling open.

I had to give myself a baked good with the ropes. I'd looped a few yards of dark green cord around her ankles, and mounted the other end from a metal wiring tube going from one light fixture to the other. This left her with her head suspended and gently swinging about four feet off the ground, with her arms folded neatly behind her back and tied with a matching green metalloid molding that somewhat resembled handcuffs.

If you ran them through a microwave. Okay, so my handcuffs look like abstract art from an imported furniture store, lessee' what _you _can do with ecto-energy.

A minute or so after her eyes fell open, they stiffly raised back up and blinked forcibly before flipping back open to a slightly more alert state.

Then, she took a deep breath and let it out in the loudest swear I've ever heard. And that's coming from a Cuban.

I guess she saw what I'd done with the place while she was out.

No, I didn't ditch the industrial padding or the harsh floodlights. I thought they made for good Feng Shui. But remember those wall hangings of hers? The…hundred and eighty nine bladed weapons she had hanging around for conversation pieces? Remember? That extensive collection of knives where you press a button and smaller knives shoot out of the tip like a gun? The double-bladed katana she probably bought at some idiot's funeral auction? That twentieth century spring-loaded knife that she couldn't get the blood stains off of?

…What did Carlos call those things…triggerblades? Something switchy and bladey, who cares.

But about that wall-lining collection of vicious weapons…

Gone.

Nuthin'. Every single wooden sheath and shelf, every nailed holster and platform, even the glass cases the knives had been in, every last one of them empty as an Irish shot glass. I'd converted the museum of bloody warfare into a museum of 'Hey…what are the hundreds of shelves for? You collect snow-globes or something?'.

Every single sword and spear, gone. All the little padlocks were still gleaming from the latches of each case, just liked she'd hooked each one on who knows how long ago.

And she apparently, she liked them where they were.

One long screamed obscenity later, she stops to breath, going into faint hyperventilation as she dangles from the ceiling of her own lair.

…man, I'm holding back so many spider web jokes…

She jerked against her ropes again when she heard my voice just pop up behind her bound back.

"…you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

A few seconds later, I break into a rasping snicker.

"…right! Right! One of your old mob connections got to her back in 2016. Heard you skipped the funeral…"

She cut off my next crack with a hoarse bark.

"_Who are you! Where are my…?"_

I let it hang. I rubbed my chin for a second even though she couldn't see me. When she quieted down, I stifled a snort.

"…Look who's talking, _Athena!_"

Pushing out of my one-legged slouch, I begin to idly step my way around where she was hanging, talking all the way.

"Of all the aliases…is Sarah Richards even that uncommon? There are five in the phone directory! I doubt the Feds even bothered looking into that, what with those three faked deaths of yours…"

By the time I was standing off to her right side, she was cutting me off again.

"FEDS! I OWN you punks! Go call your supervisor, if you're polite enough…he won't court-marshal you for going near me!"

"…Will ya' shut up, already? I'm_trying_ to introduce myself…"

I sighed, pausing for a second to roll my eyes before continuing my little stroll.

"Geez…like I was saying…we go way back."

Her nails clicked against the one-piece shackle her wrists were tied in. she dragged a finger around, probably feeling for a keyhole as she spat out where she thought I was standing.

"…oh, from where? Italy?"

…she'd spent the last fifteen in Europe, her case had been reopened after she was spotted in Venice by a retired cop. This later drove her back home to the States, and eventually to this fine city whose name I can't remember. I stopped in mid-step, thinking this over as I corrected her.

"Nah…never liked Europe. Farther back."

She got a few pale fingers around one of the green bands, trying to snap the seamless material like a plastic. She growled, more to herself then to me.

"…Oh…you mean…?"

I cut her off. Checks and balances.

"No. I don't mean the LA sniping or the anarchy outcries."

There goes age twenty to forty, her public enemy days. I fell back into my walk, slowly approaching her line of vision. She went silent, blinking a few times before it shot through her memory and fell through her lips.

"…Amity Park…"

"…Bingo."

Now, I was standing right next to her, just out of her corner vision. I leaned over, talking down into her ear.

"…you almost pulled it off. You're just another school shooting statistic. They named an explosive material ban after you."

Cutting down to a whisper, I managed not to let my dangling left arm swing into her like a human punching bag.

Trust me, I _wanted_ to.

"We…go even _farther _back…I'm no Fed. This is personal."

…she wasn't buying it.

"HA! Right, right…"

She says that a lot, really…

"…you're saying you know me from high school. I'm old enough to be your grandmother, Junior! And I'm not _that _senile, and you don't strike me as…"

I reached up and grabbed her pant leg, spinning her around for our faces were about a foot apart. Her upside-down gaze went was tightened and simply annoyed. I watched as it uncoiled like a spring into a wide-eyed, utterly shocked stare.

…Enter Phantom.

Flashing her forehead a cold smirk, I cracked a wink before finishing her insult.

"…Familiar?"

I shot forward, closing the gap to an inch.

"…then why are you shaking? Eh?"

She reared back against her restraints, trying to pull away from me as I kept our eyes locked. When I did finally pull away, she had regained enough sanity to crack open her mouth a few times, trying to say something. I watched with a lowered brow, but kept the warm smile going.

Just an old friend popping in to talk about the old high school days.

"Yeah…it's _me. _What, don't remember me? We had the same study hall!"

My hand shot you my chin as my gaze drifted off to the side, pondering what else I wanted to say as she kept trying to speak.

"Oh…didn't we…oh yeah, almost forgot…"

Her face just melted against my palm as I smacked my palm across it.

"_You killed thirty people, you sick freak! Just to lure me out for PLASMIUS!"_

As the blood rushed to her face in the shape of my handprint, she broke out into a gasping sob.

"I…I SAW YOU DIE!"

I managed not to roll my eyes as I glanced over at that desk and chair set in the corner.

"You saw me fall out of my chair. I'm DEAD! You think a few slugs will do it?"

Her sob came back, this time closer to a scream. The rest of her face had gone red, and I noticed a shining layer of tears and sweat running down her forehead towards her harp-tight hairstyle.

"I HELPED FAKE THE ACCIDENT!"

I closed my hand around her extended neck, just gripping it hard enough to bruise as our faces shot together again. I spat, trying to control the trembling hand I had around her throat.

"What was that?"

She choked out, landing a few flecks of saliva on my as my emerald eyes burned with their own light, coaxing it out of her.

"…the…car…school…MASTERS…KILLED YOU!"

The last part came out full volume. I'd let go of her throat.

I was suddenly a good twenty feet away, with my back turned to her and my arms crossed in front of me. She took this as an invitation to talk.

"…_HE_ GAVE ME STUFF! HE JUST TOLD ME TO KILL _YOU!"_

I didn't move. She went on.

"…he told me I could be a hero! My parents _hated me! Everyone did!"_

Yeah…yeah…and I bet she had a crappy computer chair and her metal CDs always skipped tracks…

…actually, I'd never even seen a compact disc, that's just a metaphor from Walt's generation. She kept talking, screaming her heart out.

…whatever happened to the Ice Queen who hit below the belt?

"He gave me everything! The equipment, the weapons, the suit!"

Funny, all I ever heard about was the weapons…

"..he told me to hunt down the Ghost-Boy!"

Really? Wow.

"…I…I…"

Cough it up.

"…I just…took the stuff…and…"

I coldly stated, letting it echo off the bare walls.

"…you set off a hydrogen charge in the lunchroom…and picked people off as they ran out…then, you ran."

I slowly turned to face her, staring her down from across the chamber.

"…you ran. Disappeared. Just went underground, became a hired killer and part-time anarchist. Your tally is up to around sixty, not counting Casper High."

I began walking toward her, not letting our eyes drift apart.

"You're currently posing as a martial arts instructor. You train both ways, Feds and crooks. You're just a killer, not a fighter."

She went silent again.

Think it's the color of my eyes?

"You're a coward. Always were. You just kept running, kept killing, and _surrounded_ yourself with defenses. Paper trails, guns in your drawers, and those stupid weapons…speaking of which…"

I stopped when I was a good six feet in front of her. As I planted my feet, I snapped two fingers into a gun pointing down at the floor she was hanging over.

Her pupils drifted up against her eyebrows, obviously afraid to look.

…spread out in a gigantic metal scrap-pile, just dumped into a pile right under her head…was every single blade and point she'd put on the wall to protect herself from everyone who sought her. All of them, hundreds of shining or rusted metal bits and random handles or straps, just dumped into one gigantic unlit bonfire under her dangling head.

And she'd spent all her spare time over the years making sure it was all nice and sharp.

And now, she was one frail strand of rope away from hitting the whole mess like an egg into a cheese grater.

I already wasted my daily wood chipper joke.

As her eyes stared down at my little lethal metaphor, I sighed.

"…Man, it's going to be heck putting them all back in the shelves…that is, if I don't snap the rope."

Those oak-stained eyes of hers flashed back up, tightening in horror as they settled on the tiny silver knife I had pulled out of my jacket. I was idly swishing it back and forth, my eyes locked on the strand of green rope as if I was aiming at a dartboard.

…I'll be honest with you.

Even if I wanted to…I couldn't have cut that rope.

It was all a gigantic bluff. Just some guy in a leather jacket pretending to be some one capable of killing a mass murderer and potential terrorist.

She fell for it.

That Afternoon

"…Later…Kirb'…!"

This was gasped out as Sam shimmied her way under and out of my cousin's lung-crushing hug.

She was wearing the same black jacket she'd worn the night of the hotel convention, with a matching black satchel thrown across one shoulder while the rest was piled into the back of the streamlined white van already pulled out into the front path of the ranch. The three-day weekend a day from ending, so she was heading back down to Florida with a van full of new collectibles from the older part of that one city I'm always swooping around in. Last Friday night, she and Kirby had that little chat about what I do in my spare time.

I'd been avoiding her during the entire visit.

And now, after saying goodbye to the rest of the family, she just had to pry off Kirby and hit the road.

I was reclining against the short hood jutting out from the front of the curvy van. I was just staring off at a piece of fabric that had caught itself on the barn door, letting the wind pass right through me as I listened to them dragging through their extended goodbyes. Kirby was scrawling an inbox address on Sam's palm, who in turn was scribbling out the name of some clothing chain that sold Egyptian headdresses.

Why did Jack Fenton make a few million dollars in stock-shares off energy-weaponry, when he could have made billions if he spent his life making a Fenton Female Language Translator?

…I'd buy two.

"…I'll call you if Alan starts looking at girls, he's about that age!"

With that, Kirby broke off into a sandal-slapping jog into the barn, probably up the ladder and under a guitar by the time Sam could get out the required blank stare. As light string plucking began to echo out through the loft window overlooking the stunned Goth and her van, she just swung her ebony bangs out of her eye before stepping through the driver's door with a slow shake of her head. Gently slamming the door shut, she made one last attempt to describe our way of life on the Fenton-Ranch.

"…that girl needs a nice boy to settle down with, calm her down a bit."

Inserting the key, she finished.

"…or maybe just an armless vest to go with that…helmet…"

…Kirby had been wearing her sparring headgear while she said goodbye.

Don't ask.

One careful coast down the dirt path later, she tapped a button on the edge of the steering wheel before taking both hands off of it and folding them behind her head, resting back against the oversized backrest as she watched the arrow-straight disappear under the front of the cruise-controlled vehicle. A mailbox shot past, prompting her to extend one sleeved wrist in front of her face to examine a particular nail edge. Her violet-tinged eyes seemed to burn onto the visible crack in her black nail polish, the harsh sunlight that managed to slip past the tinted windows emphasized the hairline imperfection in the glossy coat of lacquer she'd dipped the nail in to keep its edge. And in case she ever had to scale a wall without using a rope.

...at least I'm _pretty _sure she still does her toenails. Then again, she's getting on in years. How youthful can a sixty year old Gothic be?

…Sure, she looks baely thirty, but still. That formaldehyde that she puts in her cosmetics will have to go bad eventually.

As she pulled out a tiny black pouch from somewhere in her petite jacket, zipped it open with one hand and began filing the nail from behind the wheel, I snickered.

"…shouldn't you be swerving all over with your blinkers on like a_ real _old lady? Instead of like a sophomore with her daddy's Korsche?"

She just blew a whiff of air out the side of her lip, too concentrated on the nail imperfection to roll her eyes.

"That 'Suddenly appear' thing doesn't scare me, _Damian_…Doesn't work without the Batarangs and the young ward in the hot-pants, Kiddo."

In the passenger seat, I re-crossed my legs. I had my feet propped up in the small space between the dashboard and the windshield, I was stretched back over the reclined seat that parodied how comfortable Sam had made herself while driving. My arms were crossed loosely over the sleeveless but rather thick, black hooded sweat I'd pulled on over a longer-sleeved grey tee shirt. Together with whatever color my old jeans were, this was the closest I'd been to having a nice outfit in months. And you could clearly see where I'd cut the sleeves with a utility knife, very stylish.

I lifted one finger off my chest as I lazily stared up through the moon-roof at the white-splotched sky flipping by over us. I sighed like a kid half my age.

"…Grandma? Can we talk?"

In the other seat, she put her little nail kit back into her coat before placing one hand back on the wheel. She was just as casual as I was. Maybe she had _other_ grandkids who suddenly materialize during her manicures, what do I know.

"Sure, Alan. It's kinda' nice to talk to you without using as a speakerphone."

Over on my half of the front seat, I stared up at the clouds as if one had pulled out a knife.

"…'Hon, I was _married_ to a man who could turn invisible. And I saw the imprint in your chair."

…Months, upon months of specialized training to reduce the size of my 'sitting indentation', all a waste.

_Damn my Cuban heritage!_ Now, if I was just white, I'd be set. But no. My father had a thing for Latin women. End result, I have to wear the next size jeans so I can fit anything thicker than a dime in my back pockets, and my sisters have been on diets since age six because they don't know to be proud of that part of our nationality.

That's right. Boxers care about that kind of thing, too.

…Sam _knew _I was in Kirby's room that night…and here I am talking about my ass.

Half Cuban. Half Fenton. How do I still have all my fingers?

"…but hey, you finally got the guts to face me on the same physical plane. What's on your mind?"

Three…two…one…

"…Danny."

If the car hadn't been on cruise, she would have swerved into a cornfield with the way her color drained.

…and considering how pale she is, you have to understand how hard that hit her.

And a half second later, she'd completely regrouped. Like it hadn't happened, just blew right through her like _she _was the one with intangibility.

She kept that one thin arm hanging off the wheel as she reached back into her coat and in one violent motion slapped a pair of pitch black glasses over her eyes to hide any trace of the nameless emotion that'd just shown itself through her face. Then, with a sugar-laced voice that scared me more than her lifestyle ever had…

"…What about him, Honey?"

She…sounded…

…_Preppy…?_

I am now, scared.

While slowly inching into my door, staring sideways over at her shielded gaze as I specified.

"…The…accident…Details."

That same, cheery accent.

"They found the car, marked if off as a hit and run, he was gone when they got there."

…she wasn't all there.

Okay, time for a little cold, hard detective talk…

"Yeah…I know…I mean, the injuries. What kind of shape was he in?"

"He was gone when they got there."

Slowly I placed one foot below the other and pushed my back up intro the back rest. As I settled into a more formal posture, I tried a softer tone.

"Yes, he was. But what did the doctors say?"

She hadn't moved an inch since she'd put those glasses on.

But finally, I made some headway. She was still talking like she in her own world, but at least she was talking.

"They…said it was his back. That's what ended it."

…Bingo…

Now, I was turned in my seat to face her, looking full-on at her with a blank but passive expression.

"So…he had injuries from the wreck."

I let this hang for a second, just checking her over for any signs of instability before just saying it.

"…He was dead before the wreck. We both know that."

Before I finished pronouncing that, her head was just bouncing on her neck, confirming this.

I couldn't put her through much more of this. It was hurting both of us.

"…I…I think…I know what happened before Vlad staged the crash…"

That nod again. I slowly shifted my eyes to the front, keeping track of how she was driving along the endless maze of farm fields. I began to clearly rattle off a rehearsed sequence.

"If you've told me right…Masters, laid off of Danny for a while. After the first few incidents with those kids. He might have gotten cold feet, who knows, maybe he actually knew it was wrong."

No change in our direction or speed.

She wasn't handling this well, but she knew how to drive.

"…then, he started contacting Danny at work. Started it all over again. Soon enough, he was back in the ghost business. And so was Danny."

Still heading straight, no swerving. I held in a breath.

"He handled it pretty well, actually had the ghosts in line…there was some balance."

I moved my head to face her, but kept my eyes on the windshield.

"Then…you saw Vlad's limo outside the daycare center you left Jim at…you mentioned it to Danny…and he wanted it to stop. Vlad was moving in on you and my Dad. That was it."

I let my eyes drag across the clear glass, eventually falling on Sam's statue of a face.

She hadn't moved.

"He went out, said it was going to end that night…and, the next day…they…found the car."

She didn't nod. She didn't agree, or correct anything. She just kept driving.

I was right.

"…I…got some information."

My grandmother didn't even breathe differently. I went from the lecturing expert she'd taught me to be, to just a dumb kid trying to say what he found out from a friend.

…or a killer.

"Sam…He didn't suffer. That's all I'm going to tell you."

Nothing.

Suddenly, I realized my hand was on her small shoulder.

So much for the detective game.

Not caring, I gently squeezed her jacket and managed to keep my voice free from anything resembling how tight my throat suddenly felt.

"…He didn't suffer."

Slowly, my hand moved towards the right side of my jeans. Toward the tiny change pocket inside the main one, which I'd been dreading reaching into for hours.

"Vlad…didn't…win."

I slid one finger into the aging denim, not knowing how I hadn't broke down yet.

"Danny did. Everything Vlad threw at him. Dan just threw it all back, then just blinded the bastard. Ecto-blast to the eyes, burned down to the socket He didn't want to. But the man threatened his _family_…"

I slowly withdrew the crooked finger, dragging out the tiny object as I kept my eyes locked on Sam. Still not moving.

"…he wanted to just kill Plasmius. But instead, he just left him there. Just turned his back on him. He won."

I slipped it into my palm…

"…he…told him…that if ever tried to hurt you…or anyone else…that he'd finish the job."

My eyes fell like lead weights down to the fist held against my side. I tried to will my fingers open.

"…Danny won. He ended it."

Two white-knuckled fingers finally switched open, letting it roll down between the two tips. I struggled to make my hand stop shaking, looking down at it.

"…And…Vlad…"

I slowly bent my hand up so she could see it.

She didn't move. But I knew she was looking at it.

Clutched between my two fingers…was a tiny piece of busted metal.

It was green. But not the living, vibrant green I'd seen in my ecto-creations and on ghosts. It was just a fingernail-sized, bent and dented metal cylinder made out of a stained green material that barely glinted in the harsh light of the moon roof.

We both knew what the color meant.

Ectoplasm. This thing had something to do with ghosts. And it was a metal, I'd seen weapons like made out of this material from the Ghost Zone's rougher residents.

But this…wasn't a weapon. This wasn't a sword that could cut through a ghost like it would a human. It wasn't an equalizer, like Skulker's tech or just a piece of jewelry that survives the wear and tear of the afterlife.

…it was a bullet.

I couldn't take my eyes off it.

"Vlad…just…shot him."

I twisted it slowly, watching the dull reflection of the van interior turn with it.

"…he had a gun. No giant laser, no portal like he said at the party, he just had a gun. Made an ecto-bullet…and…when Danny turned his back…"

…that…was all there was to it.

Danny won.

…and Vlad just shot him in the back.

It was all the sicko had left. A gun. His education, his experience, his money, his vast powers in general…

…and it came down to a gun. Just, a gun.

Slowly, I let it fall back into my hollow fist. I moved to place it back in that pocket.

"…he…phased it out, to hide the evidence. He called up one of his human lackeys…had her drive a car full speed…and, they just switched her and Danny. It was all easy, the ghost powers killed off the trace to Masters and even his sidekick of the month. He didn't even keep the bullet, the girl in the car kept it."

Finally, it was over.

The tiny object was back in my pocket. And Sam was still driving.

My hand was still on her shoulder. I managed to pry it off, leaving a handprint in her jacket from how tight I'd held her.

I couldn't help it. Took me everything I had to tell her that.

"…she told me everything."

That same hand lifted up again. This time, it held a palm-sized, very flat aluminum box with a snap-lid.

The same little trinket I'd spied on that desk so long ago. What was it…four hours ago?

"She was a killer. She taught others. Had a lot of friends."

Slowly, I let the case shake back and forth. It rattled like a full can of food.

"…and she was stupid enough to write down all their names."

Tucking it back into that pocket, I caught myself looking out the window at the slowly retreating cornfields we'd driven out of ten minutes ago.

"…in this little box…I counted out a hundred something names. The Feds would give me a crown for this. Well…I…think I'd rather handle this one solo."

Hey. It was either that or let a bunch of guys in day-suits sit around filing paperwork for ten years before getting around to a single arrest.

"…but first…I'm going to finish the job…that your husband and my grandfather started. I have to."

I didn't care where I was looking anymore.

"_Sam_…please, don't try to stop me. It's too late. I have nothing else to live for."

Silence.

"…I'm not going to turn my back. Ever."

I was just hanging my head, looking down at my hands.

"…He didn't suffer. He was a hero, Sam. Heroes don't deserve to suffer."

A full three minutes of silent American auto-engineering later, I glanced up and saw she'd taken her sunglasses off.

She was looking over at me, with red-circled eyes, just staring at me. Quickly, my eyes snapped back down, not able to handle that shade of purple like I used to. And she spoke.

In the same teaching tone she'd always used. After everything I'd just put her through. How? I don't know.

"...Alan. You _are _a hero. You never wanted to be. But…you _chose_ to be…"

With that, she turned back to the wheel. I could feel my jaw loosen as I saw her dark lips curved slightly at the end. Upwards.

A smile…?

"…You're not just your grandfather's ghost, Alan. You're not a crappy sequel. You're not a well-made fake. You're not even just another Halfa. You're a _hero!_ _All you! _That's not another belt to hang on the wall. That's a belt you can't take off, no matter how hard as you try."

Right before I completely lost it…phasing right out of the moving car and letting myself disappear into the dust behind it…she got one last crack in.

"…and hit him twice for me."

…Will do.

Author's Notes

…Once again…Sorry for the delay!. I can't thank you guys enough for still reading with the way I update like this. Review if you really have the time and energy, thank you for reading.


	33. Chapter 33

DISCLAIMER: See Previous Entries

(Pre-Note: Minor language, stronger violence and graphics than usual. I'll explain this ridiculous delay in the end-note. Very, very long story. Check out Obi-Quiet's art page if you can find it, same with Lessien, both of whom have been making spectacular art based on this extremely delayed story. I promise all you guys, this will never happen again. Not if the next pair of Kevlar gloves I buy is actually worth the forty bucks.SOON TO BE REWRITTEN, CHECK BACK IN A DAY OR SO!)

…Before I begin, let me state that I had absolutely no idea that the gym was cable-ready. The place was built back before central heat came around, last thing I expected out of it was to walk into the locker room and see a TV sitting on a shelf playing the mid-day news while everyone changed or sat around trying not to watch everyone change.

…turns out the thing was running off satellite, some one just dumped it off here when his girlfriend got him a nicer one to use on his road trips. Took a straight century, but the gym finally has a TV. Until the batteries run out.

And no one was watching the dang thing except for me.

The shelf was built back into the only wall in the locker hall that wasn't made of lockers. Back in the day, they used to put daily washed towels and the like on it, next to these little bottles of cologne and deodorant to make up for the fact the place was built without any showers.

…That's the least unusual part of this place, trust me.

Believe it or not, this used to be a white-collar 'pugilism club' the heads of the city built after WW2. Pretty much a health club, with a bunch of punching bags no one used. Ten years later, Ol' Marciano bumped the sport down from a high-class European sporting event to an American slugfest. The old high-belts sold the club to a bunch of trainers, and the gym went public. The steamed towel shelf was emptied out, and a small army of nails was pounded into each board in a strict pattern. When the gym closed every night, each hook held a pair of laced-together gloves, airing out from their day of use. And every morning, each fighter would file by, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, and don their gloves in front of the makeshift drying rack before running off to the bags.

That was the shelf's life up into 1976. Once again, a little guy named Rocky changed everything. Not exactly for the better this time around.

All of a sudden, the place was filled with people who had just wandered in from the street, which at that time held a movie theater. Most of them, were not the most athletic movie-goers. The fighters were forced out of their breeding ground because of that dang Stallone movie. All of a sudden everyone wanted to drink raw eggs and hit the bag left-handed, all while grunting with a slur, embarrassing or impressing their female accomplices to no end. And just like that, the gym went public all the way. The wall of gloves came down, nails pulled out one by one, and became a wall of gym-brand merchandise they'd sell to every moron who wandered in looking for a chicken to chase.

This went on until the eighties, when the gym began to focus more on getting memberships and selling private lessons than housing pros. By the time the nineties rolled around, the place was pretty much a daycare center for hyperactive teens with punching bags that never swung from a punch.

We call this 'The Dark Ages'.

Eventually, things got so commercial and gimmick-ridden that when the sport was all-out banned right around the turn of the century, not a single pro or high-amateur had to clean out his locker. We'd all left years before, the lockers were now just cubby holes for the waves and waves of kids that walked in and quit each week. When the suburban fanatics finally won their war, and boxing was banned out of pure decency, the owners just left the now worthless and somewhat contraband equipment and furnishing to rot. Seriously. They just locked the doors, boarded the windows, whitewashed the name over the chain-bound main doors, and left it to rot.

And boy, did it rot…

After a couple years of it just sitting there taking up real estate, things really took a turn for the weird. All of a sudden, everyone had their own flying death trap to zoom around in, the skyscrapers were all chrome and neon, and back down on ground floor of the planet the old neighborhoods just began to grow mold and collapse in on each other. No, crime didn't take over and spray paint the whole place, it just kind of sat in the sun and snow gathering dust while the flying cars flew over, their shadows swerving all over the place while their drivers struggled to avoid crashing, By that time, the streets were obsolete thanks to flying public transportation, and the people who still did walk the earth saw it as a graveyard without the grass and flowers. Just dead storefronts and houses, maybe a few demolished warehouses. And in the middle of it all, blending in like dirt on a tree, was what was once a pro-class fighter's den.

More years passed, and as aeromobile fatalities skyrocketed, pedestrians and even owners of now collectable wheeled cars began getting there the old fashioned way. Nothing changed on the outside, this all was just a wasteland between the bases of the skyscrapers, but the streets were slightly cleaner with the yearly street-sweeper humming through.

Around this time, the building the gym one resided in became haunted.

I'm not kidding.

You see, it was well-known that the building used to be a gym. You could still see the G and the M over the door if you squinted after it rained. It was a touring site for the desperately bored or very observant. One day in the late 2020s, a woman was walking to the next PTA meeting that was being held in a recently renovated and ground-level church, when she heard something echoing through the near abandoned streets.

…Sounded like some one was getting the snot beat out of them.

…Abandoned streets have great acoustics, I guess…

The woman panicked, called a police cruiser down, and they followed the sound down to that old 'GM' building. He kicked the door open, ran in with his flashlight flared and expecting to break up a mob beating or gang fight.

All he saw, in the pitch-black and creaking shell of a place, was hanging objects swinging every which way from every dark corner. Once his night vision kicked in, he calmed down before wetting himself and realized that every long-forgotten and dust-covered punching bag in the place was swinging. Every one, from the ancient three hundred pound sack the original owner built down to the tiniest barely inflated speed bag, all quivering against their finally reawakened chains and mounts. It was like a horror movie.

Not a sign of life in the place…except for the bags moving around. He checked every empty room, every boarded window, every sealed door, no way in or out except for the one he'd just kicked his way through.

The few walkers left, started to avoid the GM building like…well, like it was haunted. It's natural. That and the place really started smelling like skin grease after they boarded up the windows

Around the time the now proven fatal flying cars were banned, the ban on the art of pugilism began to rust along its hinges. Three days after the last aeromobile was grounded, an interesting Congress appeal hit the news lines.

_BRING BACK BOXING!_

…what…the heck…was _boxing?_

This new generation had no clue what this strange sport was, or why it had been banned in the first place. When this little vote thingy came by, asking if it should be brought back, the citizens, still bummed about having to walk, run, and buy vegetable oil for their cars to get around, simply shrugged and said what the heck.

When the court did release an announcement, a few people looked it up on the web to see what was going to happen next month. I can't imagine how the reacted, they probably thought they'd accidentally voted to bring back the gladiators of Rome. Then, they watched a video of an actual match. And maybe saw bits of a certain movie series.

When the day did come when the sport was no longer illegal, there was a small crowd of interested or flabbergasted individuals wondering if…just maybe, some would buy this old gym and open it again.

And their jaws must have hit the sidewalk.

They watched, right around six o'clock, as a small group of extremely muscular and cotton-hooded men walked right through the crowds. Not a word was said as these men grouped around the windows, pulled the rotting planks off their rusted nails, tossed them in the dumpster out back and kicked the main doors open before walking in, closing the door behind them. The stunned spectators just stood there, staring, as a strange sound rang out through the street.

…some one…getting the snot beat out of them…?

One brave soul eventually looked through a window, then ran back and tried to explain what the men were doing. Something about leather bags. Well, at least no one's getting killed in there.

The crowd watched, not moving or leaving, as a strange array of individuals sidled through the crowd and entered the building. Each time, more of those sounds rang out, it was getting louder in there. By noon, the place was full of these nameless men and some women, not a one stopping to explain what was going on.

No one brought a bag with the, or even a second pair of shoes. All their gear was already waiting for them in the locker room. As if it'd been put there before the place was closed, or something…no one could figure that out.

By the end of the first day, some one had spray-painted a Y between the infamous G and M. By the second day, the crowd was gone. And the gym was once again full of fighters. Not a rookie or walk-in amongst them, just a crowd of silent yet deafening fighters practicing their trade on mysteriously well-maintained equipment just as they had a century before.

Even the clothes had changed little, for some reason these gym-goers dressed like back in the day, no bubble wrap or floating rings as much sweatshirts and the occasional spandex shirt. Sure, the clocks were soon replaced with LCD displays with diamond-tuned interval timers. The water system was quickly replaced, who would risk plumbing from the last century. Some one was smart enough to get the lights working again, for the first week back no one could work out at night unless some one brought a lantern.

But besides all that, it's like it was opened a week ago.

…So, what happened to that shelf of all things?

It's still chock full of nail-holes from back in the Golden Age. Except now, only the top board has nails in it. Nowadays it the built-in rack sits there, occasionally holding some one's phone or sweatbands while they're out in the single gigantic chamber that makes up the gym.

And now, shoved into the middle shelf, was a smooth-cornered mount of plastic with a plasma screen set into the front. Before this rather tiny and complete self-contained TV, sat the narrow hall of lockers and benches that had served every champ and chump since WW2. On the bench closest to the shelf, which had one end touching a brick support pillar, I was stretched out with my back reclined into the angle of the bench and the pillar. My upper back was slouched against the smooth bricks, my elbows touching my bare chest while my wrists were crossed over with my palms flat on my up-bent knees.

Both hands were cocooned in sweat-moist layers of dull black cotton-spandex. Like the rest of the occupants of the hall, I was shirtless, and also like the rest of the hall I was wearing baggy cotton shorts I'd worn during the three hours I'd stood next to a stained, cracking wall-mirror and showed Kirby how to keep form while 'shadow boxing', which is basically punching an invisible sparring partner like you would in the ring.

For one thing, don't do it in front of a mirror. You'll keep looking at yourself and snapping back to the front, trying not to remember who taught _you _how to do this in front of the same mirror a few years back.

My head was turned completely to the side, resting my temple on the cool brick while I stared over at the tiny figures dancing across the screen of the portable tube. Underneath my unruly locks of black hair, I'd just managed to sweat out the last of the gel from yesterday, my ear was pricked to every tiny sound coming from the area of the shelf. I caught a piece of a sentence as some one walked into the hall, yelling out at some one in the gym before going silent like all the other dressing fighters.

"…RIGHT IN YOUR FREAKIN' EYE! Geez, what an idiot…"

"…Richards then broke even further into the unusual, stopping near a group of cameras."

The tiny figure sitting behind a desk switched to a full-colored scene, the backdrop was a chain link fence surrounded with reporters. And in the center of the frame, I could make out an orange-clothed figure dancing about in something resembling a jig or two-step. The tiny monologue continued.

"She continued her non-stop ranting, which our sources are still deciphering, as she began…Chuck, you'll love this, _dancing _for the crowd."

A tiny male chuckle came from off screen as the orange figure continued dancing to the flash of cameras.

I didn't move as the bench groaned in pain, some one ad flopped down next to me and started peeling off his ring shoes. A well-measured, echoing voice asked.

"…What's that?"

I shrugged into the bricks, answering in a less measured and slightly dry tone.

"'Zat one chick who turned herself in for all those murders. They're recapping yesterday, the whole trip to the facility and all…"

The sounds of the reporters breaking out laughing as the dancing continued, on the roof of a van.

"…and…she did the Chicken Dance when they tried to shut her up for the press…"

Aron, managing to pull off one shoe, chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah…Waspy's been watching. She's nuts. Every time they show her she's yelling random stuff. Keeps accusing people of attacking her."

Still propping my head into the pillar, I smirked a bit.

"Yeah. She blamed like eight professional boxers, a couple Asian actors, the south side of Hollywood, and…watch her lips as she turns here…now she's saying that the CEO of some car company turned into a ghost and tried to kill her. It's like Trivial Pursuit."

The sound of another shoe sliding off against its laces.

"Dude…"

I stiffened slightly. He then finished.

"…that's not the Funky Chicken, that's the _Carlton…"_

My head snapped around, now looking straight at his rounded profile as he tossed his shoes against his locker and looped his head-razor around two fingers. He's taken to shaving his head again.

…and I could have hugged him.

As he reached under the bench and grabbed a can of shaving cream, shaking it in one brown hand as he explained.

"…From Fresh Prince. Wasp's mom gave me a file of it once. This one guy did that dance all the time."

I slowly turned back to look at the shelf.

"'Kay then…so, what's goin' on out there?"

It took him a second to answer. He was probably shaving as we spoke. He doesn't use a mirror, never did.

"Well, Wilma's stretching in the other lockers."

…he's the only guy allowed to call her that.

"…Sharky just walked in, he's hitting on the desk guy's daughter again. Mitch is putting up new ropes in the third ring, he's arguing with some guy about fixing the _fourth _ring. And…"

Silence, except for the anchors talking about the charges being brought up against the dancing and ranting mass murderer, sobering up as they listed off her admitted accomplishments.

"…Your little glove gal is shadow sparring Nicky, no one wants to actually touch her."

Narrowing my eyes on the distant screen as it switched to a side story about a new breed of dog in the area, I stated, managing to hold back the growl.

"…She's…not…_mine…_"

That measured chuckle again. The sound of shaving cream being applied.

"'Fent, my lad, she _is _yours. Me and the ol' GPS shackle have been watching. Every day you bring her with you, she throws more punches. She's like a skinny little caterpillar. Your shirts are like a cocoon. And she's turning into a _swar-mer…_"

I managed not to wince.

…why did I want to hug this guy again? He went on, setting the can down with a hollow clang under the bench.

"Bud', it's cool. We all like her anyway, so _what if_ she fights a lot like you…"

"She just watches my tapes, _alright?_ I'm just here because I got nowhere else to go all day."

Slowly, I turned my head back to watch him brush the outline of his smooth head with the razor designed just for this purpose. I kept my voice down, this was the locker room after all, but I kept firm.

"She's just tagging along. Maybe she wants to tone up or whatever, I don't care. She's not a fighter. And she's definitely not _my _fighter."

My old comrade continued his bi-weekly ritual, taking in every detail silently as I finished, snapping my head back to the TV like I actually cared what was on.

"…and who said she's a swarmer? She's probably just throwing too many jabs, I just taught her _pure boxing_."

…This…was the equivalent of saying 'I just left the keys in the ignition, I didn't tell her to go off that cliff!'.

Aron 'Iron' Risto just finished it with a knockout, not caring to finish the last round.

On a completely unrelated note, you think Wasp will take his name? I mean, she actually went with her mom's name instead of Foley when she started boxing, but does Wasp Risto sound too corny? Who am I kidding, that woman has bought out entire glove catalogs because she likes to match outfits.

"Well, whoever's training her, and whatever the heck she is, she's gettin' _good. _She keeps knocking out the volunteers, you may have to actually get in the ring again. It's been eight months, Man."

…I know.

Ten Minutes Later

"…we…can't go out the front…"

I was now dressed, newly unwrapped hands folded in the front pocket of my sweatshirt and bouncing gently on my heels next to the front desk. My eye twitched over at the nearest clock. If we didn't get to the outlet in twenty minutes, we'd have to wait an hour for the next train.

"…Why?"

Gracefully slouching in front of me, drowning in one of my old warm-up jackets and the miniature black cutoffs she'd walked in wearing, my cousin was pulling a few remaining yards of neon green spandex from around the outstretched hand she was holding out between us. She had her little gear bag slung over her back, but she hadn't taken off her headgear, which her infamous braid was currently hanging out of like a limp tail trailing down past her shoulder to the pulled-high belt-band of her shorts. Glancing up from her stubborn hand wraps, she flashed me a green-tinted nervous grin as I swung my eyes over to the unblocked and quite accessible front doors.

She sounded strangely calm.

"…Walk out, and come back in."

One and a Half Minutes of Grumbling Later

"…okay, there's a bunch of preteens hanging around the corner with a bunch of your albums…why are you still wearing that thing?"

Kirby, now ready to leave with her hair pushed down her shirt and her street shoes tied, and still wearing her red headgear simply shot back as she narrowed her eyes but glanced off to the side hesitantly.

"_Primo…no estoy en el humor…"_

…Not in the mood? This woman has made me take pictures of her posing with every Latin rock fan that creeps up to ask if she's the one with the album. I don't mean click a quick pose of her talking on her earpiece while the fan just stands there, I mean she gets a loving death grip on the poor thing and nearly cracks the lens with the glare from her teeth. Do jelly beans contain bleach or something? Or does toothpaste contain caffeine nowadays?

I managed to keep my eyebrow in check. Whatever was going on, we would both lean towards saving it for outside the gym. I held in a sigh, reaching up and pressing the back of my neck against my shoulders to relieve the stiffness.

"No prob'."

Without saying a word or giving her time to blink at my casualness towards the train we were going to miss, I reached right over with one oak branch of an arm and twisted her beloved headgear around on her head like a baseball cap. Her high-pitched yelp was muffled by the fully-covered back of the gear, which now covered her face completely. Keeping my arm stretched out over her shoulder, I pulled her braid out of the neck of her shirt and, looping it very loosely once around her tall neck like a leash, I swiveled on one heel and pulled her like a stumbling dog right through the doorway I'd just shuffled out of.

Right into the men's locker room.

...The small crowd of half-clothed men and boys, simply froze in place when they saw something in low-rise shorts walk in. The second they aw her little face shield, they simply went back to changing, shaving, or strangling their neighbor with soap on a rope for touching their magazine centerfold.

Hey, she's blindfolded. At ease, boys.

Kirby's smooth soprano from behind the padding.

"…Ter Eeck…!"

Still leading her around with her braid in my hand like I was slinging a jacket o my shoulder, we stopped in front of that bookcase, where the little TV had been switched to the sports network. Humming an old Spanish tune under my throat, I reached out and grazed my fingers along the side of the century-old wooden frame, counting off the nail holes before letting my calloused digit rest against a particularly smooth indentation in the wood. Reaching the high point of my little song, I reached my thumb into the crack between the shelf and the recess it occupied and tapped something made out of cold metal.

Barely a few seconds later, the two of us were standing in a bike-sized alley behind the gym. I gently closed a rotting wooden door behind us, pressing it back into the crooked frame as my cousin ripped off her shameful helmet and growled as her entire body tilted over on her ankles behind me, her breath burning the back of my ear as I finished setting the door in place. If leaned in the right fashion, it looked like a piece of broken fencing.

"…You do that to any _other _girls?"

I slowly turned in the direction of the street as she leaned back like a sailor on a rolling ship, not stopping.

"…I mean, blindfolds are fun, but the_ leash_ thing was just…"

She swung her hair off from around her neck before seeing my back bouncing off down the alley. I heard her trainers slap the asphalt a few times, falling in step with mine within seconds. When we came close to the sounds of passing cars she finally asked.

"Soo…your gym has a secret door…_why?"_

She only talks like a cheerleader when she's either pissed or nervous. This is why it's so rare an event.

I just shrugged, still humming that song.

"…I ever tell you about this time they closed this place? Back when all this was illegal?"

…Ban a religion, people are still going to pray. Ban boxing, and it just goes underground.

…Who the heck would look in an abandoned boxing gym for a bunch of still-active boxers during a nation-wide ban of the thing?

Apparently…that actually _worked…_Course, it was a close call when some one left the door open and hit the bag, but you'd be surprised how fast a gym can clear out when a cop knocks down the door.

This was all years before my time, of course. Just a little story about the old days, back when cars flew and discarded internet service discs carpeted the abandoned streets.

Hopefully…this old gym tale will shut Kirby up about my part-time job as a biracial supernatural creature with bad taste in leatherwear. Or, the phrase 'haunted' will spark her memory about the way I spent twelve hours in that homicidal woman's body, acting like a complete utter nutcase and moron so that whole 'I was attacked by a dead professional boxer who I helped kill back in the 20s' thing just kind of blends in.

…She's killed dozens of innocent people and police investigators. She's trained people even worse than she is. All after sucking up to a certain millionaire lab accident, killing a man better than I could ever be, and then she kicked me in the crotch.

It was personal. I could have just done it like any old detective, but that sicko _deserved _that Carlton-dance on national broadcasting. I'm also never carrying my bike keys in my front pocket again.

That Night

Three hours ago, a basketball game down at the arena two towns over was called off due to…a bunch of green guys jumping out of the scoreboards with billy clubs.

You'd think they'd just postpone it, but sometimes it's better just to call it and keep the fans off the road close to midnight. I've met a lot of arena owners, they like to say things like that.

"…Can we have another bathroom break?"

"SHUT THE HELL UP, FLESHBAG!"

Guess what? It's a hostage situation! How fun!

The arena itself was high-class, but a bit lacking when it came to home teams. Huge real-wood basketball court straight center that could turn into an ice rink in the course of an hour. Few dozen thousand seats, different levels of skyboxes perched over the top-level cheap seats. A single trophy banner of the home team's 2nd place finish back in 28 up in the rafters near the suspended translucent scoring globe, a thin crust of discarded food and dried soda over the entire place, and right in the center of the empty court, under the spotlights over the team's feline logo, was a clumped group of jersey-clad fans who'd ducked under their seats when it hit the fan. Now, they were hostages. Hence the whining about bathroom breaks.

…They looked more bored than terrified. Most of them were just sitting on the boards, cross legged or even laying flat with one arm under their head, tapping away on some handheld phone, chattering into an earpiece, or clumped into tight circles wherever some one had a GameGuy. The two guys who were wearing visiting team jerseys, the two yellow specks in a pile of green, had quickly been alienated and were playing chess through their wireless phones. Poor guys.

The third group of GameGuy enthusiasts, who were crowded around some guy who had a racing game, were starting to show signs of mild intoxication. The second group just wouldn't stop complaining about the third group's intoxication, and the first group was doing dead-on impersonations of the other two groups.

And standing guard at selected points around the circle of hostages/party-goers, were a few of the gentlemen who had wandered in without hologram-stamped ticket stub.

They were obviously grunts. Wide shoulders, tiny heads stuffed under identical helmets, barrel chests packed into mocking police body armor, arms the size of septic pipes dangling at their waists. Each looked more similar than the last, even down to the green-glowing rod clutched in each right hand, angled so it could be swung at any time in a forward direction. The wideset pairs of black specked eyes were blankly surveying the piece of group each grunt was assigned, not reacting, or showing any enthusiasm for this task.

…Now, if this wasn't a big enough giveaway to these being Walker's boys, the whole 'Casper-tails for legs' thing would have eased me into it.

Walker again. No surprise there, the last time we traded handshakes I made off with a jacket full of ecto-clubs I pulled off his best trained sacks of potatoes. And I may have made a few well-timed male baldness jokes in his presence. Add that onto the jailbreak, and I think he remembers me. He did say he'd use my spine for a dinner party belt and my mounted pelvis as an umbrella holder for his den. Then again, he probably gets a lot of cueball jokes, he may not remember my face.

That guy in with the wrist bands in group one should do stand-up or something. He really nails a female voice perfectly, it's amazing!

Not much detective work here. The grunts just came up through the foundation, scared off the entire stadium and kept these stragglers to get the reporters here faster. I counted off six guarding the hostages, close to twenty around the perimeter, and close to ten just hanging around the halls in stealth mode waiting for some one to show up.

Man, they plan an entire surprise party for me, and forget about my invisibility. Watch, next they'll give me the wrong size shirt and they'll misspell my name on the banners.

I was sitting sideways on the inches-wide brim of the home court backboard, hands crossed over my knees just like they'd been back at the gym, head turned in the same manner as I watched the latest news feature play out in much better resolution than that TV on the shelf had. I'd been watching group one and three get the party started for an hour straight. You ever wonder how Batman gets the jump on all those nameless and usually Fedora-toting thugs? Well, besides the writers overpowering him to Superman's level, he has the ability to not move an inch for hours at a time.

That's the only thing ol' Barry 'Batman' Allen and I have in common, besides a growing hatred for guns and that whole hanging out with gargoyles thing.

Speaking of fedoras, I hadn't seen a sign of Walker. But there was a guy floating around giving orders and…inhaling fumes from a burning piece of paper…Allow me to describe him.

…He…had an eye patch?

He…was green…with a helmet and vest…ecto-club slightly bigger than everyone else's…Casper-tail…and…an eye patch.

I already mentioned the authority and the burning paper thingy, that's all I got.

Right when the comedian in group one finished his fifty routine, Patchy himself materialized next to one of the guards and crossed his arms to show important he wise.

Up on the backboard, I was silently mouthing what that guy in group one would do with this spiritual reminder of why they stopped making BB guns. Probably a few Hogan's Heroes references, throw in a Cool Hand Luke gag, it'd be worth seeing.

The two identically sized guards spoke for a second, the two-eyed gaunt hanging his shoulders slightly as the patched leader tightened his grip on his ecto-nightstick, yelling something I couldn't hear over the dull roar of the hostages between us.

From my perch, I caught the direction his club was twitching, and quickly locked my eyes on that funny guy in the first group. He was standing over the small crowd of his kneeling fans, waving his arms around as the apparent commander glared at him with the one visible eye he had. As the green-clothed fan began jumping around reenacting s shot from just an hour ago when the game was still going on, I tensed as the ghost broke away from his inferior and floated soundlessly towards the group, right over their heads as they slapped the floor about the man's latest joke. By the time the poor guy looked up and realized who'd snuck up behind him, he had an emerald bill club flying right into his face. A millisecond later, when it was an inch from shattering his suddenly flush nose, the man's scream echoed off the court like the first toss-up of the final game.

Immediately followed by a guttural but somehow piercing wail, and a loud click followed by something similar to a dropped flashlight rolling on concrete.

Nothing in the background had move. The reclining crowd was still twisted in horror at the spectacle that had appeared in the center of their midst. The still-standing fan had his arms crossed over his face, his chest heaving as that last scream died off. And the burly ghost who'd went to hit him, was now floating several feet short of the disruptive hostage, gritting his brely-visible green teeth as he glared down at the right hand he was holding in front of his squared face.

...his entire gloved hand above palm-level, had been cleanly sliced right through and off. And the eerily clean surface on the top part of his ruined hand, was lightly steaming with a slight green tinge to the sizzling vapor it was giving off.

And with another military-quality scream, there was a dull flash of light from the area of his steaming stump, and when it cleared there was a fully formed hand flexing his short fingers in front of his rage-filled profile. Slowly, like the rust was cracking off the gears, he swiveled his non-existent neck in my direction.

Let's cut to the home basket, John.

I'd finally moved. And if that wasn't amazing enough, I was actually visible to the naked eye. I was standing, most thanks to the fact gravity and I aren't speaking, on the very edge of the top edge of the backboard. Feet planted shoulder width, shoulders flared back, one orange hand flexed at my side while the other was parallel to my torso, holding up the gun formed by my cocked thumb and pointed forefinger. Head turned to the side, I lightly blew a light green steam off the perfectly innocent fingertip. I then swung my head forward to look out at my fans, managing not to wince as my bangs kept swinging and fell into place as I clicked my tongue into a small smirk and called down to them, echoing off the floor of the dead-silent stadium.

"…Playing with sticks…all fun and games until some one loses an eye…"

Another primal yet restrained yell from the half-court line. The little speck of a head warden waved his arm towards his belt, ands I wtahced with that same smirk as four green-burning but…extremely…slow moving balls of light flew at me as he stood behind them in a pistol firing position.

Up on the basket board, where I was sitting like a fake deer with a target on it, I simply snapped the fingers of the still-raised hand and raised the other palm in front of me. When the blasts did reach me, they collided against the thin green barrier I'd materialized across my left wrist as I waved it to catch each one in turn. If this place had been hosting a hockey game that night, I would have made a goalie joke. But no.

As he grunt ed and tossed his obviously worthless gun off where his baton had rolled, I looked down at my still-raised palm as the shield blipped out of existence. I was suddenly wearing a pair of overly stylish green sunglasses.

In the best monotone I could manage…

"Whoa."

Yeah. I went there. Wooden-faced jerk deserved it.

I looked up from my Keanu impersonation when a carefully spaced voice yelled out.

"NOW!"

Thinking they'd pulled out the big guns, I sprung off the board and went airborne right as the place filled with a sound resembling a wind tunnel kicking on. As my weight quickly dissipated in mid-air, I shook off those stupid glasses, looking back up as I raised a fist to…

…look heroic right as something cracked right against into my temple like a bat with a nail in it.

My vision went white. I fell like a stone, losing the concentration needed to even hover. Right as I went to catch myself, another blunt crack, this time against my lower spine. Before I could even comprehend the pain, three more had gone off against my arms and again to the side of my head. Then, it was like some one swung me by the legs into a brick wall. Turns out I'd just ended my free fall, right into the home court line. I just went limp after the pain stopped.

But not before, in very colorful Spanish, telling God exactly what he owes me for getting into this business. I'm thinking either redhead. Or a saddle bag for the bike.

…Who am I kidding, just throw in a cup holder with the bag and I can die happy. For a change.

"…Mr. _Phantom_. Long time no see. What happened to your bath towel? Couldn't fit it over that darling jacket of yours?"

Great. I'm developing a skull fracture and slipped vertebrae, and he's milking the Agent Smith jokes.

I managed to crack open one eye, and promptly slammed it shut. I was on my back, and the stadium lights were on the ceiling above me. That unfamiliar, yet already hated voice went on. I quickly matched it with the yells from half-court.

He suddenly sounded cheery.

"I knew it! I _knew _it…Walker _believed_ it. Plasmius. Skulker. Spectra. Even that mangy guitar girl. They all thought you were finished!"

I slowly opened both eyes.

Only to have my vision flash green as my head was whipped sideways against the boards.

"…But _I _didn't. And _I_ was ready. Ready to take you down, when no one else could…you were my big chance. And now, after all this waiting, you are _mine…"_

…So Agent Patch here wasn't a commander…he was a grunt trying to make a name for himself.

…do these guys even _have _names?

"...Six months. That's how long your case has been reopened. Every hour since then, I've been on your tail…I've been ready to take you down since you were fourteen. And now…I'm going to…"

My eyes shot open, my neon green irises locking onto the one-eyed face bent down over my crumpled form as I cut him off with a surprisingly clear tone.

"…Lose the stupid friggin' pink eye cloth and get outta' my face!"

His green-tanned and utterly featureless mug instantly recoiled in surprise as I reared back my seemingly limp neck and spat right up into his looming face.

Right on the patch.

That yell again. I watched a gloved fist raise up to crush my skull like a walnut, before it changed coursed and clamped itself over half of his face as the scream shifted from rage to…

...Pain? Check.

Not missing a beat, I jerked myself upright out of my landing position and kipped my ankles up off the floor, quickly locking them around his shoulders and pushing them down until his back-plate slammed onto the floor next to me. Following through with the momentum I flipped my torso off its probably injured back. We finally landed, him pinned under me with my legs around his neck, and me with an elbow locked around his thrashing tail as I crushed the diameter a few inches to make this as painful as possible. These guys can't die. Makes it easier to suffer.

As the sudden lack of oxygen computed with my new grappling partner, I crunched his tail even tighter and chimed.

"…Brazilian Jujitsu…none of that American crap like Ju…"

I looked up, wondering where the hostages and guards had gone.

"…Doh…"

…Oh…there they are…All…two hundred of them…

Surrounding the makeshift wrestling circle, giving us a good six yards on each side, was a row of those guards. Without the eyepatches. I quickly scanned around as my captive began choking, realizing they had circled us. Looking up, I saw another row floating over the heads of the last one. And over them, another…and another…slowly craning my whiplashed neck up, I saw what looked like a small dome of ghost-guards, each brandishing those clubs or even some ridiculously oversized pistols, all looking down by the hundreds and watching me try to tap out their leader.

And…surrounding our little stand-off...was a small wasteland of discarded clothing. Green jerseys and shirts. Caps. Everything the hostages had been wearing. Just lying around the court floor with no one to wear them.

…Disguised reinforcements. Genius. The whole time, even the guy in group one...

Maybe…I should…let him breathe a little…?

The dome of henchmen collapsed in on itself like some one had hit the switch, down at where we were sprawled.

Maybe I should stop planning everything two seconds before I do it. It's a problem I have, like moving my lips when I read. I blame that dictionary-induced head injury from way back.

Thirty Seconds of Continuous Pounding Later

…and just like they, it was just me, and the remaining ten guys.

_What…the heck…was THAT?_

...That swarm of reinforcements...had turned tail and flew right out through the stands. Just stopped in mid-swing or punch. Some of them, were screaming.

I hadn't moved from my spot on the boards. Except this time, I truly couldn't get up.

This time, I'd managed to roll onto my stomach to save my ribcage. And I stayed there. Still on the home court zoning line, I was pressed flat to the wood, both arms shoved under me at extreme angles as I struggled to straighten out my legs through the joints that had just been cracked into their own bindings.

I'd tell you what I looked like by then…but I really couldn't make it out. Pretty hard to see through the layer of light green fluid splattered over every inch of my being.

All of it….my own blood. Those guys don't _bleed_, either.

And standing in a makeshift perimeter around me, were the ones who hadn't ran. Looking over with the one eye that hadn't swollen shut, I could see the one floating closest to me was missing a section of his armor plating. Then, I looked up at his face.

Blocky. Green. Beady eyes, squared jaw, cracked visor over his helmet. And contrasting quite sharply with his uniform features, was a gaping, visibly dripping indentation where his right eye should have been. Dangling from the side of his impacted helmet, was the strand that had held up an eye patch that had saved his actual face the full effect of the acid.

…One look, and I instantly doubted you could fix that with a grunt and a little ecto-forming.

He still looked better than I did.

With the still functioning portion of his jaw, he rasped toward the scattered troops that had stayed behind with him when whatever happened, happened.

"That…wasn't a Ghost Wail…Told Ya'…"

…Capitalized letters…that must be something important…

Flashing back in rewind as I began to breathe from my battered position, I recounted the exact second when the sticks stopped hitting me.

I… just went to yell something…and…they ran…?

…_Ghost Wail…_

Back on the floor, my eye fell shut. The sudden pain of the strikes were gone. Now it was just the internal damage kicking in.

…_They ran…_

I could hear that voice again. Coming closer.

"…Get the cuffs ready…just one last crack on this sad piece of trash and I'm…"

He stood over where I lay. He slowly, full of pride, raised his retrieved club and prepared to send it down into my neck.

"…In the cle…"

Underneath my shattered torso, something moved. The hand I still had feeling in.

A whistling sound. This was it.

"...Er..."

And right as he finished, and landed his stick down on my lifeless form, I managed to one last motion before losing it entirely.

…I let my hand roll into a fist. I could feel whatever blood I had drain out of my knuckles as every bit of strength left crunched the bones of my hand into a flesh-covered stone.

_Crack!_

_---- _

"…Alan…Alan…"

…Great, now St. Peter forgot my last name…And he sounds like a chick.

"…ALAN!"

Wait…if this was the Pearly Gates…

…why does it feel like I have a small SUV on top of me…?

A lighter, shorter voice.

"I _just_ told you..._he_ _can't hear you! _I'm surprised his jaw is still attached! How can you expect him to talk?"

St. Peter again.

Hey, he's a soprano.

"_My_ _primo _isn't another one of your _snobby patients_, so how about you just…!"

A male voice.

…Okay, it actually sounded more like a furnace kicking on…

"_Both of you! Shut up, and when he DOES wake up, I was never here!"_

…That voice alone sent me back into unconsciousness.

I recognized it.

Eight Hours Later

…Darkness. Something was over my eyes, even when I managed to open the one. But the smell that reached my still-functioning nostrils jumpstarted my other senses.

Ecto fluid. Stainless steel. Concrete. Leather. All these scents rushed straight through my memory.

...Val's lab...

That voice from before. The softer one.

"…Wow…he's actuaully breathing through his nose…I owe that Spanish gal' ten bucks."

A raspier, but still feminine response.

"Don't even _try _putting Mittsy in with that politically correct crap…"

That was Valerie. She only uses those Hispanic jokes on Kirby.

A few minutes of listening to basic fem-talk later, I managed to wet my throat enough to growl.

"…Who…?"

That new voice was suddenly right over my ear. And she sounded like my old special ed teacher.

"I! AM! YOUR! GREAT! AUNT! DO! YOU! REMEMBER! ME!"

...Jazz Fenton? Here? Now? Where?

...Son of a...

I sighed, feeling how dry my mouth was.

"…yeah, yeah…Danny's sister…"

Silence. Then, in a true foghorn fashion.

"YOU! WERE! FOUND! AT…!"

The sound of high heels clomping the floor near my head, and Valerie's acute rasp half sighing and half yelling to correct the former.

"…A bunch of Walker's grunts rolled you. Somebody found you out cold at the stadium, brought you back here, Miss Perfect here was in town, and she pretty much taped you back together."

…Did she put in a female translator while she was putting my brains back in? Like Robocop had? Because that would kick.

"…Kirby was here earlier. She flipped out. Took off on my old bike an hour ago…She didn't think you'd make it..."

…Oh crap….

"…'Fent. When they found you, the place was a mess. What happened?"

I licked my lips. I could taste dried blood.

"Ask Skulker. He's the one who brought me down here. I heard you talking."

More silence. A few seconds of it later, I looked up through the bandages over my eye and sighed out the side of my somewhat intact mouth.

"…I have good ears…Just a warning, whatever you put me on while I was down isn't going to last. I hold my neurotoxins like Wasp holds her liquor."

Zing. And to her _Mom, _too.

"…And…somebody should go get Kirby. She's gonna' be pretty messed up, but tell her I'm talking, that should help."

Before I could rattle off more orders, my great aunt simply sighed to the mother of my old sparring partner.

"He takes after my mom! Doesn't he?"

…Did she just call me Maddie Fenton?

If I weren't incapable of lifting that center finger right then…okay…I admit, I don't have the manners for that. Instead, I casually asked through my chipped teeth.

"…And whose idea was it to strap me to this stupid table? Again?"

They dragged me in here, in critical condition, and they put me in Val's little Fentonstein table? Again?

This has been the worse day I've had since Kerri got those ferrets.

…That green one owed me fifty bucks. Don't ask how I know that. I have a concussion or two lying around.

Later that Day, Noon

Junk…junk…news…serial killer chicken dance…junk…boxing match, bingo.

Yeah, I was actually watching the TV in my bedroom for the first time in a month. Even weirder, stretched out on my rug was something that looked like a fur hunting rug some one made out of an albino wolf.

…Frost usually sleeps in _Kirby's _room. Weird.

I was stretched out as well on my military-dressed bed, reclined against a few extra pillows to ease the now mild pain coming from my lower back and both shoulders. I was bare to the waist in a pair of cutoffs, showing off a few cloth bandages strapped around my ribcage, knees and wrists where I'd taken the worse of the last day's beating. That eye had gotten better overnight, I was gazing down past my outstretched and bare toes at the wall-screen with a face that showed no sign of what it'd been put through twenty hours before. Heck, my nose even stopped bleeding.

Sure, I'm technically not human…but who can complain about the healing metabolism of a NASCART driver? When they'd cut my jacket off me to set my ribs back in place, Val had to handle it with heavier gloves. That stuff is only acidic when something that isn't dead or supernatural touches it. And my jacket was soaked in it. I was grateful they didn't let me near a mirror until Jazz ruled that I wasn't buzzard meat.

…How did Kirby react when she saw me like I was?

She was stretched out on the other side of the bed, in her navy baggy pajamas, watching the channels flick by as I tapped the remote. She'd just plopped down next to me when she'd came up from her morning bagel run in the kitchen and saw I was home.

..Okay, it took me close to half an hour to pry her out of the hug she'd laid on me, but now we were both acting like it never happened. Just two friends sitting around watching Saturday morning TV.

When I finally let the screen settle on the Spanish cartoons, she asked, the first spoken sentence we'd shared.

"…So, any ide…"

I shot back.

"No clue."

As she flipped off her back onto her stomach to watch her animated idols, I just pressed back against the pillows and let her unfinished question play out against my still flustered mind.

Skulker. Enough said. Where. Why. How. Why again.

Here's what happened, more or less.

He found me, keeled over, surrounded by whatever was left of Patch and his lackeys. And…he didn't leave me there to die.

Maybe he took that mind game of mine seriously.

Only one sure thing can come from all this.

…I'm not as weak as I thought I was. I'm _weaker._

Author's Notes

…Three weeks…one day…I cannot begin to explain what went on in that time. But do know this. I typed the last half of this chapter, one handed, because the back of my left hand currently has to be rewrapped in new bandages twice a day. I managed to pull off a few paid articles for a change. I currently have twenty three unfinished stories and articles on my recent document clipboard in Microsoft Word. I haven't slept in close to twenty one hours. I'm finally getting my act together, and if you're still reading after this shameful absence, I cannot thank you enough for forgiving me. Next update, will be obviously sooner than the last one, and as you can see, I am still alive. Somehow.


	34. Chapter 34

DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

Author's Note/Apology: A MONTH, and one hour of no updates…what was I doing? Not having fun, let's leave it at that. Before the holiday season, I got myself a batch of articles to write, that comic studio is on its last leg and I'd rather not go down with it. Not a single article made it into a magazine. Also, I've spent a few hours each day for the last month…reading chat-logs of child molester solicitations. This, is the part of the job I've hated the most. That's honestly what I've been doing, reading unedited, REAL weblogs of these sickos doing their thing, so I can write perspectives on it for an article that will hopefully make it. And while I was reading these plain out sickening things, trust me on this, I'd rather have been writing fanfiction. Don't thank me for updating, I don' deserve it. If anyone deserves it, my girlfriend does, she insisted I get this chapter done after a month of occasional new pages, because I was ready to jump off the roof of this building because of how far back that job put me.. For the last two days, after reading a total of forty sex offender cases in detail from the first instant message to jail cell detail, I just completely crashed. And now that I'm done, and back in the swing of things, this is the first story/column I'm updating to let everyone know I'm still alive. Can't thank you guys enough for still reading this junk, with how poorly I'd adhered to it. My inbox is currently filled with plain out complaint letters about how I'm not updating my other works off this site. I mean plain out insults, saying I should stop learning how rapists think in order to catch them, so I could write something that the email writer could laugh at for ten minutes. I have a couple thousand words of the next chapter on my screen as I upload this, give it a few DAYS at most. You heard me, days I'm back, guys. I'm back. I wanted to tell you guys about this back in September, when I first got involved, but I figured it wouldn't hurt my update routine. Yet another reason to hate sex criminals, people, they delay your fanfiction. But in all seriousness, I'm back, that job is over, and updates are going to start flowing again.

---

Later That Day, Noon

Twenty seven. Twenty eight. Twenty…

The barn door wailed on its hinges as it was shoved open by a pair of hands obviously not used to opening barn doors. As a silver-framed head popped into the shaded interior of the converted barnhouse, a sliver of harsh sunlight appearing on the wall opposite to the visiting head.

That voice.

"Alan! Are! You! In…!"

A loud yelp, the door was kicked open and the head was now attached to a wiry body that had suddenly sprawled out in the entry way of the barn. There was a rolling clatter as something wooden hit the floor near her legs. Face-vault, with a quick head turn of a save to preserve some scrap of dignity. 9, 9, 9.59, and a 4 from the French judge.

Darkly outlined in the doorway above the drop-kicked woman, stood another visitor who was crossing her arms over a sleeveless red blazer as she glared down with a shaking head. Her rasp growl echoed less than her friend's spaced exclamations.

"…Jazz. Lay off."

Agreed. Wait…almost forgot…

…twenty nine…

That voice again, this time losing the 'special education filter' as she pushed herself back onto her feet and dusted off the blue blouse she was wearing. She spent a few frantic seconds brushing the wool back into place before turning on her heels and half-shouting at the aloof Valerie with a fist at each side.

"_I'm _the psychologist here! Don't tell me how to work!"

As she spun back around, quickly squinting her eyes at the shadow-filled barn interior as Valerie closed the door behind them and shook her head at something.

From my where I was watching, I did the same.

…Career advice? Jazz Fenton? Naaah…

I'll give her this much. She was the best dressed Fenton I'd ever seen. Considering my family lives in bubble wrap and jumpsuits respectively, this is a pretty easy feat, but she had my cut-away tee shirts and jeans beat by half a lap.

She was wearing a sky-blue blouse with each button carefully folded into its matching slot. Her slim-cut white slacks both showed off her surprisingly slim figure for her age, I guess Fenton genes are good for something at least, and the way her conservative top matched the color of her eyes almost perfectly.

As for the wooden clogs…well…no comment.

As her soft blue eyes adjusted to the darkened interior of the barn's ground level, a gold-skinned head popped up over the edge of the considerably brighter loft. The two older women mustn't have heard the power ballad interlude they had interrupted. A golden head poked itself out of the loft, a good few feet of black hair following it and swinging under it as if it had to hop a cab to keep up with its owner. A pair of pure green orbs looked down at the red and blue clad visitors with raised lines for eyebrows, glancing over the dust-smeared Jazz with a tilted head before noticing Val. Upon recognition, the painted red lips down the street from the green eyes curved along one side in a warm-up for a grin. Before Jasmine noticed the floating head under the rafters, it hoarsely called down in heavily lilted English.

"…Looking for Alonso?"

Jazz did a double take before forcefully smiling up at Kirb' and nodding. She then asked, in a very slow pace.

"Yes! Where…is…he?"

…you'd think she was talking to a foreign landscaper…

Who am I kidding, I'm related to about sixty of those guys.

Behind her, Valerie faked a sudden coughing fit to hide an observant smirk. Kirinia, managing to hold in a smile, simply extended a purple-sleeved arm out so it was next to her extended neck and head, and with a loud snap extended her thumb toward the maze of beams holding the roof together.

…Thirty…

The P.H.D collecting feminist, responded with a narrowed right eye, before slowly following the thumb up into the exposed beams. Both of her blue eyes then snapped to full width as she exclaimed, earning a soft snicker from Val.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?"

No, I was working out.

In the elaborate framework that was supporting the ancient Amish roof of the barn, there's a set of inches-wide horizontal pillars running from the main beams out to the visible supports in the walls. One of these beams, which was running from the center beam of the barn to the wall-mount just seven feet above the suspended floor Kirby had turned into a hay-smelling sound lab. Unlike the other obviously modern sand-colored planks, this beam was darker than the rest because it had been treated with a power sander and a thin layer of natural polish to keep it smooth.

And hanging from the beam from two bent arms, my chin suspended a good few inches over the beam, I was holding myself in the top position of a chin-up.

For the thirtieth time, I relaxed my arms and let myself slowly lower down into a fully stretched hang. My dusty trainers were dangling good twenty or so feet above the ground floor of the barn.

I was wearing a pair of cutoffs I'd found lying around Kirby's room. They were mine anyway, and they looked clean enough to wear. I was still shirtless, but the cloth wraps Jazz had used to stabilize my busted ribs from the night before had since peeled off. My currently flexed and somewhat sweat-spayed back was still sporting a small collection of healing bruises and shallow cuts, the only reminders of the last night's escapades down at the arena.

Adjusting the fingers of my right hand, I looked down past my dangling feet and said, letting the acoustics of the barn carry my voice down without having to yell. She'd asked me a question, it'd be impolite not to answer.

"…Uh…just, warming up, actually…"

I looked back up at where my hands were wrapped around the old beam, palms towards my shoulders. I modified my breathing slightly before whistling in the direction of the loft.

Below me, a certain some one screamed.

"YOU'RE GOING TO HURT YOURSELF!"

That would have been a nice warning before walking into that Rodney King-style ambush, Dr. Fenton.

Or whatever the heck her last name was nowadays. Pretty sure she changed it. Who could blame her.

Dr. Whatshername decided to scream again.

"…GET DOWN FROM THERE! _BOTH OF YOU_!"

…She must have spotted Kirby.

Thankfully, she'd heard me whistle through all the screaming and string plucking going on. She had probably waited a few notes before flipping her guitar strap off her shoulder, gently placing it down on a rug, and crouching down and stepping out of her sandals as she adjusted her hair for the tenth time of the hour.

Then, she jumped up and caught the very beam I was hanging from with one hand. It's seven feet up. She's six foot. She could have just reached up and got it, but where's the shameless fun in that?

And now, she was briskly walking, swinging her bare feet around each other in a very natural balanced stride. If I hadn't seen this hundreds of times before, I would nave noted how precisely her toes gripped the beam. Usually she just let her arms hang, like she was walking to turn on a lamp, but for some reason she had her wrists raised at each side, flaring both palms in a very dainty, lady-like fashion.

All that, over a twenty foot drop with no net. Is that why that one woman is screaming so loudly?

A few seconds later, as I was hanging from slack arms getting ready, I felt a manicured toe touch my right hand. It sharply tapped my last knuckle twice. I responded with a slow nod.

Kirby then simply turned sideways, toes to both sides along the beam, and hopped off like she was jumping off a porch step.

For a few…extremely…loud…shriek-filled feet, she fell like a stone. Then, there was a sharp clinching sensation around my ankles.

Glancing down, I noted that she had wrapped her arms a good few times around my dangling ankles, and was now dangling under me as the momentum made us swing side to side for a few seconds. Once she had her grip settled, she glanced up at me and flicked her eyes in the direction the screams were coming from before winking and going back to just hugging my ankles for dear life like it was nothing new or out of the ordinary.

And, after a second of making sure she had a good grip and telling myself this was worth it, I once again pulled myself up past the bar and did a successful chin-up, now with an added 137 pounds of resistance.

You heard me. Pounds. I _still _hate the metric system.

Back down on the spectator area, Jazz had gotten two handfuls of her distinctive silver locks and was close to pulling them out as Val slowly stepped up behind her, tilting her neck back with a blank expression as she watched. She wasn't taking notice of the silver-haired woman's screams and warnings. Instead, she simply muttered her single thought about the situation.

"…Diggin' the ankh, Fenton…"

Jazz heard this, freezing in mid-scream and literally threw herself against her red-clad counterpart with eyes that could have been on fire if not for their cool blue coloring.. I quote.

"_They're going to kill themselves_!"

Valerie, still leaning her head back with her arms crossed.

"Doubt it…Pup's got some arms on him. Now, if he was carrying _me _up there...Like I said in the car, that bagel diet? Complete joke."

The out-of-the-loop neurologist simply shook her head frantically before swinging back over to the ceiling and continuing her amplified scolding.

Thirty five…

A few minutes later, I was still chinning, and Kirby had made herself as comfortable as a training apparatus could be. Trhough some probably amazing and death-defying act of balance and talent, she'd flipped herself around and locked her legs around my ankles in a little trick-knot, and was hanging upside-down under me with her hair hanging like a sports banner. Now that her hands were free, she had one wrist bent in front of her furrowed brow, as she used the other to try and pry off a little hatch on the side of an old silver watch she was wearing.

She was winding her watch. She really should get a new one. Those wind-ups don't mix with her lifestyle that well, what with all the swerving and sudden stops. Those hugs of hers probably cracked the gears in the dang thing.

Jazz was now pacing the length of the barn, twisting her hair tightly with one hand as she tried to find where she put her cell phone with the other. When she finally double-checked every pocket on her person and she turned to the silent Valerie to ask for a loaner, I swear she looked exactly like Kerri for a few seconds.

Mainly the way her jaw went slack when she saw no one was there. And the way she twisted her head around both ways like a confused puppy before noticing that Val was scaling the loft ladder, upside-down, at a very good pace.

You know, I always figured Wasp came from an athletic family. But a woman Val's age flipping onto the ladder like that…no wonder her daughter hasn't shown any ill effects of professionally boxing with a tackle box hanging off her face. That's just talent.

…You know, for how absent he is from all this, I really have to wonder if Wasp is really his daughter. Then again, selling Wi-Fi toasters off in Japan for…years at a time…would probably explain Wasp's…lifestyle. And that tackle box hanging off her face.

As my grand-aunt Jasmine came close to fainting, Valerie had just reached the loft. She was standing over the ladder, watching Kirby and I with that same blank gaze. In an equally neutral tone, she asked.

"How much you carrying?"

Lessee'…I'm two eighteen…two pounds of shoes and shorts…Kirby…

Hissing through an arm extension, I grunted over at her.

"Three sixty one…"

And them, she finally threw me a bone.

"Not bad…"

With that, she turned on both heels in a military fashion and quickly planted herself in the bean chair Kirby had been warming for most of the morning. As she picked up that carefully place guitar and sat in her lap, upside-down, I noted the way that grip on my ankles tightened.

…Guess Kirby saw that another woman was fondling her axe. And, finally…

…Fifty.

With a hissing sigh, I let the tension drain from my arms and limply fell a few feet, only having enough energy left to keep my fists locked around the beam. I then looked down with straining eyes, and called down in the direction of my feet.

"…you mind taking the elevator down?"

Kirby's head appeared next to my feet, only her face was visible since her hair was falling behind her head like a two-foot tail. Cocking a Crayola eyebrow, she asked the guy who was keeping her from falling twenty feet onto her skull.

"_¿Usted serio? Pensé que usted hacía muy bien..."_

I would have frowned at her, but that probably would have wasted enough energy to make a hand give out. I just sighed again through my teeth as the three hundred pound weight on my fore-arms started to catch up with the adrenaline-riding speed freak that was my brain. I replied in English.

"Gimme' a break, I was near cardiac arrest last night!"

My cousin just shook her head, causing her dangling hair to shake like a python before she went back to hanging under me, crossing her arms as if she had just been given some one else's check at a café. I glanced back up at my throbbing arms, noting the dark red my hands were turning before taking a shallow breath and releasing my grip on the beam.

My arms simply dropped down and bounced against my hips, inciting a wince from their owner as I rotated my shoulders to get the stiffness out.

…I was still just two feet under the chinning beam, floating in mid-air with a _Cubanita_ dangling from my ankles and one heck of a back spasm.

Here's a memo to Mr. Gravity and Ms. Physics…Can't touch this…

As the blood stopped pounding through my ears, I noticed the screaming had stopped. Either she finally passed that kidney stone, or she passed out in general.

What, didn't she ever watch the guys do pull-ups in gym?

Still floating, I rubbed both arms a few times before concentrating on getting us down. Slowly, the beam floated farther away from us as I let us drift down like a rock sinking into a lake. Ten seconds of this peaceful break from heavy lifting later, and Kirby had already flipped herself around so she was hanging from one of my shoes with her left hand, while she held the other arm in front of her mouth as she tried to get that watched winded using her front teeth. When her sandals touched the boards, I let her hand phased through my foot before quickly dropping down next to her. She used her free hand to hold the leather band of the watch as I reached a swollen arm over my shoulder and pressed it against my aching shoulder blade briefly. When I brought it back in front of me, I held up my palm and examined the thin lines of blood that had smudged against it.

Lifting twice your body weight must cause healing cuts to bleed more. Something new every day.

The second I dropped the hand to wipe it off on my cutoffs, it was replaced by a pair of blue eyes that just seemed to pop up an inch from my face.

And, insert screaming.

"YOU WERE CLOSE TO _DEATH_ TEN HOURS AGO!"

…you know who she sounds just like? Sherri. Maybe some one will spill something while I'm doing push-ups and Kirby could do a voice test on the two of them.

I didn't move. I waited until the centers of her pupils stopped bursting into flame. When they did, I sent them right back into spontaneous combustion with one sore shrug.

"I got better."

She inhaled, getting ready for another round.

Before she could open her mouth, a sharp whistle caused me to snap my head up towards the loft.

Valerie, who had made herself comfortable in that bean chair, was leafing through some sheet music as she yelled down out the side of her mouth.

"I told ya' before I drove you out here…this kid's _tough!"_

She flipped a page, narrowing her eyes at something Kirby had scribbled in Spanish above the title.

"…Huh…So they really do draw the little comma thingies…"

I smirked up at her, but my lip quickly fell back into place as the other one blasted right into my ear.

"You…were…injured! You can't do this!"

Slowly, I turned my neck to look down at her. She was standing a few inches from my chest, glaring up with those clueless eyes of her as I noted that she was using that tone again. I cleared my throat, and stated in perfectly pronounced English, at a normal rate.

"…So…you saw my report cards. Does the receptionist still have that thing on her neck?"

That pretty much described the two months I attended high school.

…Pretty sure it was an infected mole…

Her eyes quickly fell into a Kerri-like state of blank confusion. Without another word, I sidestepped away from her and walked over towards a nearby pillar, grabbing a dry towel from a hook and quickly pressing it against my face to smother the sweat. By the time I'd dried my brow and moved the ragged terrycloth down to dry off my neck, she was standing next to me again with that same blank stare.

Ducking my head under the towel and letting it drape around my shoulders, I looked over at her with a tilted eye and resisted the urge to respond to the rather accurate impersonation Kirby was doing just a few feet behind the stressed physician. She had enough practice doing Kerri, it was probably second nature by now.

Quickly recovering, she let one index finger rise up as her jaw lowered, then asked an obvious question in a suddenly less official tone. Behind her, the retired actress-gymnast lip synched it perfectly.

"…what…was that?"

…did she get her P.H.D off that one infomercial? The one they only play when I actually try to sleep, and I forget which of the three hundred remote buttons turns the TV off?

Much as I loved blank stares, I just threw one end of the towel over my face and began mopping off some stray beads of sweat.

I didn't even try to hide how I felt about all this. Must have been the rush from the chins. Or the blood loss in general. Maybe both.

"Whaddaya' want, Jazz?"

I spent eight seconds just drying my face off, waiting for her response. Eventually, I simply tossed the towel over my shoulder, hearing it plop down onto a waiting table.

She was still staring. Heck, even Kirby had given up on it and was halfway up the loft ladder as Val came a bit too close for comfort to the guitar that was sitting closest to her chair.

This blank staring contest didn't end when I simply shook my head slightly and just walked right past her still form towards the framed golden cracks in the wood that defined the barn doors.

Right before I _firmly_ closed it behind me, I heard a little yelp that sounded somewhat like.

"I just wanted to he…!"

Didn't catch the rest. I had completely vanished a few feet out of the doorway, and was clocking one eighty airborne before the door I just slammed could hit the hinges.

Two Hours Later

Here's a tip for survival in the wilderness. Do not, I repeat do not, mention children's playthings in the presence of a bear.

Seconds before my already slash-striped back slammed into the brown mortar bricks, I phased. The momentum carried me through it, and a moment later I popped out the other side of the building, going solid before touching my feet down on the sidewalk as it rushed by, loudly skidding myself to a stop as I tried to shake those horrific silver bangs out of my eyes.

It was an extremely bright day. And since I was darting around a suburb right off the train tracks, without the nice shade and smog-veil of the city, I was starting to wish I had been wearing sunglasses when that lava lamp fried me.

I'd landed right in front of a now deserted outdoor café, there was still food spread out over all the wire-mesh tables and benches. Everyone had scattered when they heard the first wave of wild animal noises. The rubber-burning landing left me in a slight crouch, left side swept behind me as I stared intently from under my brow at the bare brick wall I'd just flown out of. I kept both hands spread at both sides, resisting the urge to reach back and clutch one of the three bright green lines seeping out the back of my jacket.

Without warning, my stare gave way to a casual grimace, I straightened up slightly and yelled through one cupped hand at the brick duplex I'd gone through.

"…Sorry about that! Love the living room! the green really brings out the ceiling arches! The fireplaces are just beautiful! But next time an ectoplasmic life form detours through your house… it's customary _to put some clothes on!"_

Or at least get out in the sun more often! There are _public beaches_ for that kind of thing! This is the 21st century! We haven't exactly beaten cancer yet, but we at least took care of tan-lines. But tell that to those weirdos.

Who am I kidding. I'm crouched in front of a restaurant in full leather and a post-modern color scheme…and I'm calling a rather pale-boned but well decorated suburban family _weird_?

How did Spiderman pull this off? All my quips keep lashing back at me. Heck, a year ago I made fun of neo-metro guys with those stupid long bangs and the generic leather jackets. Look how that turned out.

Right as I thought about finding a mirror and just burning the excess hair off, there was a gargling battle cry from behind that bizarre homestead I'd just taken a two-second tour of.

Snapping back into my stance, I found myself speaking out loud, rasping down at my torn collar.

"Okay…Lion…Bear…Next up on the cliché food chain…?"

There was a piercing whistle as something cut through the light breeze. I watched as a green shape silently arced over the duplex, all it took was one overly graceful leap.

Right before it began to descend toward the sidewalk I'd landed on, I made out a flurry of black stripes that was covering the otherwise shapeless green shadow.

…Tiger…Oh My…

And it just cleared a duplex with a running start. And it's heading straight at me, mouth open, claws out, hurtling right at my stationary position at the speed of a small bus.

First instinct?

…God? You there? I'll just assume I've been praying onto your voicemail for nineteen years. Here's a message. Keep me away from Jack Fenton after the bus dumps me outside the Pearly Gates. Just a warning.

Same goes to the guy in the _other _direction…

And now, for an actual reaction to a fully sized and incorrectly colored wild cat flying at me with an overpowering roar trailing behind its windbreak.

I stood right where I was.

I just glanced up and looked right into those black marbles he called eyes, as they quickly zoomed towards me at an impossibly constant speed.

A second later, the wonderful feeling of two inch claws piercing the front of two inch claws piercing my left arm made me realize that who ever sang that song about what I just did…was higher than Elton John.

Well, screw 'Eye of the Tiger'. Arm hanging off by a tendon. Time for plan C.

Using the overwhelming pain in my side for energy, I sprang my left foot off the ground, raising my torso up and to the side, and launching my face up so it was inches away from the gigantic canine teeth that had been aimed at my shoulder. And I'd just offered my unprotected throat instead.

The roar, mere inches away from my aching ear, became even louder. Tim for the kill.

Then, he realized he was still moving seventy miles per hour. And when I lifted my foot, I took away my balance points. Which it was going to use to stop its momentum, avoiding a crash landing, and kill me instantly in the process. It's what mountain lions do to hikers.

…Instead, still its front paw attached to my arm like a set of meat hooks, the proud, yet primal feline…found itself _spinning_ around twice like a carousel animal off its pole, before slamming with a stomach turning _crunch_ into the sidewalk. Face first. Those teeth, having nearly sliced my neck, probably didn't survive impact judging by the loud cracking when the rest of his weight sent his hanging jaw directly against the flat of the sidewalk.

Like crashing one of those toy airplanes on a string. Except it weighed close to four hundred pounds and the string was wrapped around the actual bone in my forearm.

And sweet god, did it hurt like a…

Right as its stripe-divided forehead met a crack in the walkway, I finally let out that scream I'd been holding in for…three milliseconds.

"…_KAAAAAGHHH_!"

Wow. My sarcasm is faster than a speeding puma-projectile.

I didn't even get a chance to pose over its body and spit out a catchphrase. Shortly after Mr. Stripey hit the pavement, I collapsed to one knee and keeled over a few yards away. The pain in my arm slammed my eyes shut as my uninjured wrist kept my forehead from cracking on the curb I'd stumbled over after my little spinning trick.

For close to a minute, I just laid there, sprawled out on my stomach gritting my teeth.

I didn't have the nerve to look at my arm. The only sensation I had below the shoulder was a constant, piecing pain that made every breath a pant. I am going to openly admit, I saw few tears on the grey concrete when I managed to slide my eyes open.

When my vision focused, I found myself propped up on my good arm with my legs limply stretched out behind my, the toes of my featureless black shoes facing the same direction from the way I'd fallen sideways. Glancing down at the part of my torso not slumped against the ground, I could see the half of my jacket and shirt had been torn off on the right side. Once I finished frowning at the scrapes on my mostly exposed chest, I noticed a striking silver line in the side of my vision. I marked it off as another concussion injury, the way it was glowing, until I turned to look in that direction and my chin bumped against a warm metal cord.

Walt's necklace. That still-relentless sun must have hit it and made it look like just a vision blur.

Losing track of the situation, I followed the gleaming silver thread down to where it had touched down and idly planted itself when I fell. I moved my single bent wrist out of the way slightly, looking down at the section of chain that had dropped right below my face.

Sitting there, side by side along their chain like a pair of bats hanging from a telephone line, sat a tiny engraved medallion in the shape of a looped cross made out of some kind of pewter. And next to it, somehow shining brighter in the shade my torso provided, was a much simpler built and similarly sized silver cross. Just a cross. No engravings, no mythological background, just a dull silver cross you could probably find ten of in any pawn shop.

Right before I shook my head to stir up the few senses left in it, and pushed up onto my knees, I took a hard glance at the plain medallion and uttered a near silent curse.

At myself. Not the cross. Or the man who shouldn't have given it to me in the first place.

Or…that…other guy, who had to do with the cross…I'm Latin-Catholic, I'm genetically conditioned to fear that kind of thing. We don't tell kids about the Boogeyman to get them to eat their vegetables, we have a dead _Saint _with six arms, one eye and no teeth who will jump out of your nasal cavity at midnight and devour your toenails, that's how plain out scary my religion is.

I ignored the slight twinge as the dual necklace swung and bounced against my skinned chest, stiffly stepping to both feet as I noticed the gigantic green paw sitting on the edge of the curb I'd been using as a pillow.

Quickly stepped back a few paces, I couldn't decide it what I was seeing was tragic or a thing of beauty.

Depends on your political party, really.

Barely a few feet from where I'd fell, was an oversized but obviously feline paw hanging off the side of the curb with its pads facing off to the side. It was a shade of unnatural, sickly pure shade of green. If the fur weren't shining like it would on an expensive coat, and if the paranormal didn't have an obsession with that color, I'd swear it were painted. It was halfway flexed, and from between the remarkably lush fur between each 'toe', there was a harsh glint of light where its claws were exposed. If the size of the paw wasn't enough to scare some one, the two-inch barb flaring from each toe would seal the deal.

I let m eyes drift up past the slightly tensed claw, traveling up a stripe-spiraled and muscle-bound front leg, eventually ending up between two hunched shoulders that put a linebacker to shame. Stretched out on a stump of a neck, on temple slumped against a green-stained patch of sidewalk, was its head. From the perfectly symmetrical green nose with its galaxy oh whiskers, to the ornate slashes running down its cheeks and crossing in the forehead, every inch of the gargantuan head was a work of art.

…if weren't for the way its eyes had slid shut. And the limp length of rope its tail had become six feet behind the figurehead that it called a face. The paws still looked alive, ready to pounce, ready to kill, but the once fearsome face was quickly becoming nothing but a death mask as the green stain under it slowly expanded, reaching a crack in the sidewalk and forming a small river of neon green that flowed off toward the curb, forming a tiny neon green waterfall before going down a storm drain.

Standing over it with my arms hanging limp, one slightly higher than the other on my injured side, I couldn't really find an emotion to fall back on.

…I do admit, standing over such a gorgeous corpse suddenly made me wish I hadn't gone into a career that required a yearly broken nose and a few annual payments of scar tissue. Sure, it was dead, I wasn't. I could say the same about Walt. But unlike this bulgy floor rug decorating the sidewalk, he had more going for him than a nice set of stripes and an Eastern religion worshipping him. That guy had one hot wife.

After a moment of somehow admiring my handiwork, I managed to hold back another grunt as I raised my good arm and pointed a cocked thumb and forefinger at the still beast's damaged head. A second of creasing my brow later, the tip of my forefinger developed a green tint that quickly turned into a small corona of emerald energy, silently pulsating as I took aim at the base of the fallen tiger's neck.

For close to a minute, I stood behind my parody of a weapon, telling myself to just do it.

He's dead.

Now _keep it that way!_

…and without a word, my hand quickly dimmed back to its orange tan. The finger and thumb fell loosely into a fist as it fell to my side, brushing my torn jacket with a loud swish.

Slowly, I placed the single working hand into my front pocket on that side, slowly turned, and started walking down the middle of the street with my shoes heavily brushing the traffic lines and my eyes angled down in front of me as I coughed down into my green-washed neck.

"What's the point, it'd be probably just be over…"

Before I could finish comforting myself, I felt myself stumble a few inches into a step. I froze, my back foot with its heel off the ground and the toe of my front shoe tensed to push off. Widening my eyes from a dark frown to a somewhat casual raised eyebrow, I looked down to see why I couldn't move my leg as I ended the quote.

"…_KILL!"_

Wrapped around the lower pant leg of my right leg, right above the black cuffs that hung over my shoe, was what looked like a large green worm. Just firmly wrapped around my ankle a few times. Quickly veering my head to the side, I spotted one end of it, suspended like a tiny tightrope behind me.

…In…the direction of that dead tiger…

As I was instantly whipped off my feet and flung backwards through the air, I thought of a thoughtful quote to put on my screensaver if I ever regain use of my fingers.

"_Next time you get an obvious **shape-shifter** down for the count...SHOOT IT UNTIL THERE'S NOTHING SHOOTABLE LEFT TO SHOOT! You have ecto-blasts, it's not like you can run out of bullets, you stupid piece of freakish Celebrity/Cuban offspring!"_

_-Damian 'Alan' Fenton's Single Remaining Brain Cell_

Right as I wondered if I should date the quote, a rabid 'No Parking' sign ran up and buried itself into my abdomen. Then, a swarm of chairs flew up and attacked me. Then, this parked car just came out of nowhere and used me to polish the front bumper.

After so many 'When Inanimate Objects Attack!' episodes later, I became aware that I was being flung around by something resembling a tentacle.

Right before that last chair dove into my already cracking ribs, I became aware of something else.

_Ghost Powers…_

Lesse'…being slammed around like a club into urban décor…ghost blasts? Can't concentrate, too many flying chairs. Flying? That'd be nice, if I knew which way was this thing called 'up'.

"_Sunova!"_

Another parked car…dang Sunday drivers…

Night vision!

…it's seventy degrees out, no clouds!

Hey, that tree branch felt kind of nice…before it cracked against my forehead…

Hey…what's that one thing called? Where I'm like…not…solid?

Just a second, I have to phase before this mailbox hits me.

Okay…being swung around…I'm intangible…everything is just going right through me, the tentacle is still around my leg…

Now, which ghost power to use…

But before I could ponder the pros and cons of somewhat acidic saliva, my vision stopped blurring. And my head stopped spinning.

And all I could see was a gigantic round, dark green head with two black eyes the size of basketballs, staring at me upside-down. And since I couldn't see a little white forest landscape along the top of my vision,_ I_ was probably hanging upside-down.

Then, there was an extremely fluid voice flowing from the direction of the massive and eerily featureless head.

"That, was for throwing me into a landfill, you roadkill-headed ruffian…"

Landfill…?

…Wait…Eric Phantoon…the Chinese vase…Spectra…birth control capsules…called me gay…

Wow. This may be my greatest concussion to date. Pretty sure half of that stuff actually happened.

…_Bertrand_…I figured.

That booming, yet elegant voice again. I quickly realized I was looking at…an octopus…on land…that could talk…and was definitely larger than the usual nine feet long that most marine biologists classify as above average...I just saw a three hundred pound jungle cat hurdle a duplex and I'm only still alive because…don't ask…why am I still complaining about lack or realism?

Wait…Most Cubans are light-skinned…what's the deal with my tanned relatives? And shouldn't they technically be Communists if they support their background so much? And how'd they ever get around to killing Castro?

Oh yeah, the giant head is saying something.

Those basketball-eyes shrunk down to the size and shape of footballs. It was focusing on my dangling form, sizing me up. I didn't waste the energy going invisible, so I was just hanging there with my arms hanging below my shoulders and my bangs somewhere up in Canada for all I know.

"You…look taller than last time…"

…My nose, was probably being held on by a q-tip Walt forgot to take out years ago…my face was obviously a mess of whatever color my blood was in this form. My hair was standing straight off my head like I was a Japanese drawing.

Nonetheless, I lowered/raised my eyebrows depending on how you consider up-side down faces to work, and said, spitting out a tooth in the process.

"New shoes. And just a little tip-off. There's a small dog making friends with that tentacle over by the jewelry store, might want to shake the little guy off before he elopes with it."

Completely losing face, the gigantic pair of black eyes went from blank and fearsome to just plain ticked as it spun its head on a swivel to look at the tentacle I'd pointed to with my working hand. He actually grumbled, forgetting to let his voice resonate.

"Why, that little piece of…!"

The eyes flattened out on the tops as if it had eyebrows as it advanced onto the tentacle's end, peering over a green-splattered mailbox to see the dog.

…Instead, he just saw a plain old giant tentacle, sitting on a bus stop bench, with no dog proposing to it.

Slowly, like a rock falling off a cliff, the head swiveled back to the tentacle it was dangling at arm's length over the street. His spooky baritone was back as he hissed.

"Oh, all of a sudden you are so very…?"

The eyes, still slashed off at the corners like tight eyebrows, focused silently. A few seconds later, the left black orb began twitching uncontrollably.

The tentacle was still dangling over the street. And it was holding a bright green, obviously handmade and threadbare scarecrow sporting a freen carrot nose and buttonhole eyes.

It was wearing a patched leather-looking jacket, and had green straw sticking out of its head to look like light colored and unruly hair. And stuck onto its upside-down chest, was a piece of torn paper hanging off a thumb tack, reading in scrawled text.

_Psych!_

Somehow, with whatever he was talking with, he did something that sounded like that roar the tiger made when it pounced. With a whip-like action, it flung the offending farm decoration off over the rooftops, it disintegrated into green flames before it could physically fall apart.

Okay, I didn't manage to recreate David and his famous nudity.

I mean…I _could _have, but the scarecrow just seemed funnier than a marble naked guy. Doesn't it?

The oversized sea creature quickly flared every limb it had, raising each thrashing serpent into the air as it readied to attack in each and every direction. He tried to muffle it…somehow…but this still slipped out as those ebony eyes veered to each side like an animated hunter.

"_Clever_ son of a gun…"

Each tentacle began waving in a circular pattern, swiping the air for anything it couldn't see but could touch with some luck. A minute of this later, he turned slightly and began swiping more frantically, occasionally swiping under a bench of above a car, trying to find a hiding place it could reach. All the while, cursing what or who it was looking for.

And in my hiding place, which I gurantee you he couldn't find, I was busy as well.

I was crouched down, staring down at my knees as I gritted my teeth with enough force to bite through a sapling.

I had my hand around the injured shoulder on the other side.

And, right as Mr. Legs lost his temper and smashed a mailbox, I took a quick breath and put everything I had into plain out cramming the numb shoulder back into where I hoped I'd found the socket.

I could feel my teeth starting to crack, it was that hard not to scream.

He did it for me.

"_Where are you!"_

His answer, a musical chime that sounded like an old cell phone going off.

One of the tentacles stopped in mid-blind-swipe, moved over in front of the gigantic noseless face, revealing a black band tied around the base of the limb. He spoke into it. His circular eyes narrowing into rectangles.

"…What now?"

A shrill voice sounded from the device on the arm.

"…Up here, darling!"

The other seven arms, just stopped dead. The black rectangles veered from his 'wrist', to the rooftop of a brick building across the street.

Standing on top of it, leaning voluptuously against a chimney, was what appeared to be a purple shadow. Shaped like a rather stereotypical female silhouette, with a somehow high-heeled foot crossed over a bone-thin ankle, and two perfectly rounded arms crossed over the obviously dominant chest.

And over this living Vitctoria Secret ad, two pinpricks of red shone brightyy over the mauve flatness it called a face. I could see a white line, curved to look like a smirk.

…I'd recognize those legs anywhere…actually…I just recognize the shoe style, the legs themselves are out of my department.

That's Spectra up there, if you need to know. Guess she didn't have time to put her face on.

Her slimy green accomplice, glaring up from behind a maze of suction cupped vines, suddenly looked…nervous.

The shadow, tilting her head slightly, called down in a buttery, cheerful chirp.

"…Having trouble?"

Bertrand, without even having a mouth…stuttered. A few tentacles shivered slight.

"Uh…I…he…"

His large eyes became even larger, as suddenly a floating purple vixen was floating merely inches away from his face, screaming at full force.

"YOU HAD HIM BY THE THROAT! HOW COULD YOU SCREW THAT UP, YOU SPINELESS BLOB!"

He flinched. No real skeleton, but he flinched. Then, he fired back.

"Well, what were _you _doing! Just flying off after we found him! Allow me to guess…YOU BROKE A NAIL?"

Spectra, floating with her fists in front of her thighs, showing pointed teeth as she advanced, nearly touching her head to one of his eyes.

"I just bought us some _real _firepower!"

With that, the bulbous head swiveled right away from her, leaving her glaring at nothing but green skin. He looked proudly away from her, crossing two tentacles in front of him defiantly.

"Oh? Really? Another whack-job _rocket?"_

She stabbed the air with one nail as she zoomed over to face him, he cut her off with a raised tentacle.

"Honestly! You have some…science project…launch 'accidentally', and hope it blows him up?"

Her fangs clenched as he finished, slamming his ebony orbs open at her.

"WELL, IT DIDN'T WORK THE FIRST TIME, NOW DID IT?"

…And…invisible as the Tooth Fairy, I stopped adjusting the bone in my ar.. I just stared off into space, the mention of a ghost-geared rocket bringing back old memories.

…That…was _her?_

Geez…Man, something that stupid, I _hoped _it was just a miscalculation or something. Who designs a ghost-seeking rocket? Honestly? That only goes after _half-ghosts? _

And, the honeymooners answered it for me.

She was fuming at him, fists at her sides again.

"…Plasmius…gave me the access codes…it _will _work…"

…No. It didn't. It did freak out all the paranoid farmers who fear being probed by Communist grays, but that was just a perk.

Did that thing even _come close _to catching me back then?

Bertrand, tentacles crossed, eyeballs squared.

"Right…the guy _knits. _You're a shrink. You _trusted _that fruit? Even after the first one obviously didn't get him?"

She was still floating in front of him, but now had her arms crossed and her back turned to him. I watched the back of her head shake slightly as the wind carried over her rasp.

"That…sicko…went through…my purse…"

Not missing a beat, her spineless cohort mumbled behind a tentacle coyly covering where his mouth would be.

"Oh no! Not your _purse_! You haven't been on a real date since a week before the Cubs got that last Pennant, do you really think you need those things?"

Her head stopped twitching.

I come from a family of extremely…eh…_Cuban_ women. Trust me on this one. That babe's gonna' blow. Head for the hills.

But before she could, a dull noise pricked my right ear.

Likewise, the arguing couple spun to the right, hearing the same noise.

There was a silver dot, just visible in the clear blue skyline that the sun was frying over our heads.

A giddy squeal.

"See! See! It's got his signal!"

She jumped in front of her partner in crime, placing her face directly in front of his right eye, her lined mouth bent into a twisted grin.

"I was right!"

…his other eye, raised slightly.

"Are…you taste-testing those prescriptions back at the office? Or does going through menopause every time you screw up really kill that many brain cells?"

…If it wouldn't sacrifice my stealth tactic and probably kill me…I would have started slowly clapping.

She didn't hear it. Too busy posing in the air before us, proudly looking at the slowly growing speck she was so ecstatic over. She sighed.

"It will just hunt the half-breed down…blow him to little Snack-Size Halfa Bites…and we just have to sit here and watch the fireworks…"

For a moment, nothing but silence.

Bertrand unfortunately didn't have a British comeback for that. And she had finally shut up.

And I had to go and ruin this rare silence by snapping my fingers loud enough for the entire abandoned neighborhood to hear.

The mauve shadow in the go-go boots, instantly looked over with narrowed crimson eyes.

"What the hell was…that…?"

Her assistant, squinting up into the sunlight at the rapidly growing silver speck. The fins were now visible, the dull roar of the engine was getting closer by the half second. He grumbled.

"Yes, yes, that's the Patriot Missile you want to elope with, we get the point…"

His head swiveled back, his invisible eyebrows flared.

She hadn't moved. She was still casually looking over her slim shoulder at the shed-sized squid's head. Her eyes had loosened, now just blankly looking up at something in the direction of where Bertrand's forehead would be if he had hair or a face in general.

Her mouth was hanging open.

Bertrand, quickly noticing.

"…What now, Penelope…?"

A single purple finger appeared next to her face. Slowly, as if trying to catch a fly without scaring it, she jabbed her pointed digit in the direction of the top of her head.

His eyes became squares again.

"…Yeah…take his head right off…you said that already…"

She began jabbing the finger tip faster.

The rocket was a kilometer away. It was starting to sound like an airport runway out in the open.

He didn't notice, too busy glaring at her finger.

"For the last time, you don't have any zits. You don't have any _skin_."

He missile, it's oddly shaped nosecone glinting in the sun, was still coming.

Her finger was just a blur. Her mouth was still hanging open, her somewhat crooked teeth clearly visible in a very unflattering way as her finger spasmed in some sort of odd signal involving her forehead.

Finally, he had enough.

"Okay…okay…I get it, I'm going bald! Happy?"

…I…thought octopuses were bald, anyway…?

With a frustrated grunt, his narrowed orbs swung upwards, crossing them severely up towards his own rounded cliff of a forehead.

And, with his eyes crossed up at his forehead like an idiot, his face stuck that way.

Maybe these two belong together after all.

For a few seconds, the two just stared up at his head as the whistling roar in the distance cleared the three mile mark.

Her finger had finally stopped moving.

Out of nowhere, the dinner plate eyes jumped off to the side, glancing at the incoming anti aircraft missile some bored scientist had turned into a ghost seeking nuke.

Out the side of his mouth...how, the heck is he even talking, he asked in a slight whisper.

"It's…homing…right?"

She nodded. Her jaw clacked against her neck.

He glanced back up, crossing his eyes again.

Stretched out comfortably on my stomach, my chin resting on my two folded arms as I dreamily stared off at the approaching rocket like a little kid watching a cloud.

…From on top of Bertrand's gigantic head.

Every few inches of my face, hands, pants, and hair was streaked with brown and green from that breakdance number with the street signs. But my shredded jacket and shirt, had been replaced with a blood-free and freshly pressed pair. A few seconds after he started staring at me again, I looked down at him with a purposely innocent-looking, demented smile that brought out the way my face was still intact behind the blood. I then nodded, swinging my bangs off in that direction and asked curiously, dramatically throwing out a palm I hadn't been capable of even feeling minutes before.

"Hey…when that thing comes and blows me into Halfa Bites…how will they taste mixed with the massive amount of sushi it's going to turn _you _into?"

Coming from a guy who's sitting on your head like you're a balding beanbag…that…might have hurt a little.

And that danged missile was still coming, what a predicament.

Four Seconds Later

Between frantic grunts and guttural roars, an inhuman voice rang off the shop windows as they flew by.

"_Getitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoff!"_

Bertrand, realizing what kind of situation he was in, has turned into a purebred, green-hide Texas longhorn. Complete with raging black eyes and shiny green ring though his nostrils. His hooves were pounding the asphalt, horns glinting in the burning sun whenever he passed a window, and beads of sweat flying off his neck with every mighty toss and swing he made.

And, hanging onto an ecto-cord wrapped around the curve of his squared neck with one hand and holding on a forest green Stetson with the other, I was having the time of my life.

I drowned out his 'Get if off!' mantra with an enthusiastic…

"_Whooooohoooo!"_

The rocket, two miles and coming closer by the millisecond.

Three And a Half Seconds Later

After he realized that throwing me off wasn't going to cut it, he'd taken a more intelligent route.

Getting the heck away from that infernal plot device that's been flying around for most of the day.

If I could spell it, I'd tell you what kind of generic flying dinosaur thing he turned into. Whatever it was, he had a hundred yards between us and chrome-plated annihilation, the only thing I could hear was flapping leather and individual breaths that somehow formed curses. He had to grow about a twelve foot wingspan to carry the weight, compared to the spindly green body it made him look like a reptilian humming bird with how fast he had to flap.

And I was comfortably stretched out on his back, looking out over his thrashing tail and admiring the hand-carved nosecone of our pursuer.

…I honestly don't get why some one carved that one into a wolf's head…they're pack animals, not really symbolic for this kind of thing. But this time around, the bored genius got it right. This new one was bearing the likeness of none other than a large, striped cat's head, quite similar to the one I should have splattered…twenty minutes ago.

My arms folded under my neck like a pillow, I commented to my chauffer.

"Stupid as that thing was to build…not that bad to look at, eh?"

His fang-filled beak called back.

"DIE!"

He then barrel-rolled, sacrificing a good ten yards.

I stayed on, adjusting my leg a little during the sudden spin simply to keep my thigh from going numb. This wasn't the most comfortable extinct lizard I've flown on, the service was terrible for what I paid for round trip. Those United Air velociraptors, now THOSE are nice….

Feeling that his last ditch effort had failed, he squawked out another curse before glancing over a bony shoulder at the chromed cylinder that was really starting to be a father figure to me in my chaotic daily life.

"Get off…_please…?"_

Not even batting an eye, I shrugged, still looking back at the bomb like a teenager looking at traffic.

"Well, since you asked politely…"

Without another wasted wisecrack, I slammed my heels together and shot right off the uneven mount, curving up around his head before kicking in the afterburners and phasing out entirely.

He had been flying at about…church parking lot speed compared to my takeoff requirement.

Looking over my shoulder, you'd think he had just won the lottery.

The instant he realized my shoes had blurred by his shovel-sized snout, his spiky beak twisted into some sort of relieved smile.

In mid-flap, right over the backdrop of the city skyline, he just stopped in the air and threw one surfboard sized wing over his pointy head with an uncharacteristic whoop.

Standing on an apartment building roof a good ten blocks away, leaning against a fire-escape as my hair whipped back and forth against its roots from the momentum, I shook my head at this.

Few mistakes he just made.

Do the fist-pump whoop, BEFORE making sure the other guy is down.

B) Stopping in MID-AIR, when you rely on traditional and physics-bound movement to stay aloft.

…Remember that missile?

Before he even realized he was going to drop like a stone…well, you read the 'Bertrand-Don't' List', right? Just now?

When things did hit the fan-osaur, I already had my sleeve over my eyes and was ducking down behind a solid piece of railing.

Even with the leather wrapped over my eyes, I swear I could actually see a green around the corner of my vision. And a few seconds later, my free arm was quickly clamped loosely around my ears as a small sonic shockwave tore through. Not loud enough to break glass, just loud enough to want to rip off a pair of headphones that some one turned the knob on to get your attention.

A few paranoid seconds under my sleeve later, and I tilted my head slightly and poked one eye over the top of the railing. Quickly, the rest of my head snapped up to follow as my eyelids rose up to my brow in a fluid 'The Heck?'.

For one thing, I could see without squinting. A single, rather tiny grey cloud in the otherwise light-blue to aqua skyline, and yet it was blocking the sun.

And there was a gigantic bloom of neon green and dim black fumes wafting down from the sky like some one had pulled the confetti cord. It was spectacular. Slowly, the smoke display sank to roof level, where the low city winds began to tear it apart from the bottom up.

"…So _that's _why some one made that thing…"

…Because it just plain looked cool…I'm pretty sure Jack Fenton has that on his headstone, come to think of it.

Slowly, a few rare sounds cut into the silence of the abandoned city outskirt. There was a distant yell, a male voice saying something about a camera. Some one must have looked out their window. From my perch, which gave me a full mapped view of the concrete suburb, I watched as a few faint specks began moving about on the gravel-strewn and patchwork of roofs and balconies that were only visible from a higher perspective. At first, only a few metaphorical ants appeared on the edges of the widest warehouses, the bravest or the dumbest coming out to see the middle of the smoke plume began to split into two.

Ten minutes later, the picnic blanket of rooftops was covered in ants, many of which were perched behind tiny legged specks that I guessed were cameras or telescopes.

Minimal collateral damage, and I gave the locals a photo op. Does this count as community service? Those parking tickets for the bike are starting to fill up Kerri's closet pretty fast, I'd like to get a handle on things before they start spreading over to Sherri's side of the house.

Those little bike racks outside stores are designated parking areas. And the ninja clan of meter maids says I can't park a European-made motorcycle there? I haven't seen a kid riding a bike since…that one field trip we took to that museum. The city still puts up racks all over, makes it look like this newest generation still has the energy to venture away from the VR-Network. It's gotten worse since they designed them to be used in a bathroom, saves gamers the hassle of…well, every plight of their existence, really.

As the city-dwelling ants admired the rapidly dissipating Wizard of Oz cloud, I dangled my legs off the edge of the top-floor fire escape and examined my worse arm while the other leaned on the green-tinted knees of my black pants, the right knee had been torn away to reveal the orange flesh that had produced he green pigment now soaking my legs and shoes. I narrowed two air-burned eyes at the my leather-wrapped elbow, bending it mechanically a few times to gauge when and where the shooting pains were coming from. I found myself staring at my open palm, focusing on a few dripping green streaks running down the line that sectioned off the base of my thumb.

My lifeline. How sadly ironic.

Letting myself fall onto the bent arm with a sharp sigh, I snapped my fingers down onto my stained palm before watching the familiar grooves on the ends of my fist go from black to green. Right as I thought of just wiping the stuff off on my jacket, there was a faint buzzin sound of plastic bouncing against stiff denim. Sliding my left arm out from under my aching ribs, I pulled my phone out of my front pocket without looking and flipped it open with one hand in a painfully practiced motion before holding it next to my ear. I spat a wad of green-blue fluid out the side out the side of my mouth t to clean off my tongue before speaking into the receiver with a completely casual tone.

"…H'lo?"

A few seconds of staring down at the rusted grey railing later, my eyes drifted back to my orange and green fist as I grunted into the phone.

"Yeah…yeah, I heard about the giant squid."

As a faint chirping rattled off from the aging speaker on the phone, I opened my fist idly and examined how the green had smudged out to show a faint outline of my fingerprints along the underside of each knuckle. Leaning closer, as I noted the reverse swirl on my ring finger's mark, I nodded as if the caller could see.

"No, nothing like that, I just ran off because…"

With my palm a few inches from my face, my pupils snapped up as if staring some one in the eye. Not dropping the palm, I felt my eyebrow drift upwards into a familiar stance as I hijacked the tail end of that last sentence with a quick question.

"…She's _still there?"_

Frantic chirping. I countered, glancing down to my right with a slight sneer.

"Yeah, that's great, but now I'm fine. She's done. She sticking around for the bill or what?"

A sharp chirp. My sneer quickly melted into a wince. More chirping, my raised palm fell like a tree into my lap as I stammered.

"And…I…Uh…But…"

One last chirp, and I couldn't help but picture the way she always tried to crush the phone into splinters when her agent called. Sure, she wasn't even close to ever cracking the thing, it's still scary s heck.

"Kirb'! She saved my life, okay? I thanked her."

Silence. Slowly letting my eyes rise out of the wince, I continued.

"Then, she blows me off when I ask about Skulker, and she walks into the barn talking to me like I'm not allowed to use a fork."

The speaker was silent. Feeling a slight twitch above one eye, I brought my palm back up in front of my eyes, instinctively hiding the twitch even though I was completely and utterly alone. Not invisible. Just alone.

The twitch became stronger, I felt my jaw naturally tighten the side away from the phone as I went on.

"…My family finally stops calling me the drop-out, and this woman goes and marks me off as a retard."

The start of a chirp. I cut her off, snapping the palm back into the fist without noticing.

"Oh, like _hell_ I shouldn't say it! They tried sticking all those fancy-ass disorders on me, tried the programs, tried the drugs, and all those years not a single teacher could say it. I'm just an idiot."

Without thinking, I sprung up onto my feet and began slowly pacing the four feet of mesh flooring hanging outside a tenth floor window.

"…I don't care _whose_ sister she is! She walks into _my _home and pulls that stuff, I'm not sticking around to hear her med-school stories and other crap. I don't need another smiling doctor talking to me like I'm _half_ my age!"

Reaching the end of the platform, I wrapped a hand around the railing as I stared down off the side at the cars starting to pass by on the road underneath the fire escape.

She said something, I wasn't paying attention.

"…Call me when she leaves, Alright'?"

Chirp-chirp. I shrug, slouching over the railing to get a look at a dot moving down the sidewalk.

"…Dunno', maybe stop by Aunt Maria's or something. Pretty sure it's a weekday, and I think I can manage that lock on the pantry."

Like a deadbolt can stand between a starved half ghost…now that's just sadder than who ever spent his spare time making those ghost-seeking fireworks. What next, dragon-seeking traffic flares?

Another cnipr, this one actually made the side of my mouth jump into a smirk before I could stop it.

"Ha! Geez…you serious? Sleep? Halfas don't sleep. We watch sitcom reruns. And fight crime. Either or, depends on which channels are working."

Stupid satellite dish…Sure, muggings have nearly disappeared off the charts in the last month, whose idea was it to buy an entire season of that show from the 20s and play it all night?

I mean, it takes place in a space station. A mostly gay, Western-themed space station.

Talk about stone-age. I'm starting to think that they didn't even use holograms.

Turning and resting my back against the smooth concrete between the two dark windows that flanked the fire-walk, I adjusted my grip on the phone as I once again began examining the blood on my hand.

It's not as weird as you think. My uncle and his cop buddies so the same thing after a box of powdered donuts. You should see what happens when some one breaks out the Hanna Barbara tapes.

…Those meddling kids…where the heck did they get the licensing to live in that van? Was the twentieth century that trashy, or is this just an artistic liberty? For all I know about history, Japanese cartoon characters are supposed to look like the population of Asia after Canada dropped that hydrogen bomb back in World War Two. Not sure who they dropped it on, exactly, I remember they all had mustaches.

The sudden calmness in my voice surprised me. She's just that good, that girl.

"…Nah, I promise…Just blew up a giant squid with Torrettes Syndrome. But hey, you remember that…?"

I paused.

…What's another word for rocket? Pretty sure I went through an entire thesaurus already.

I dropped my palm to stroke my chin.

…The second my hand cleared my eyes, all I could see was a wash of purple with two bruning red ireses hanging a few inches from my unsuspecting face.

Quickly, I raised a finger, signaling for just another minute before turning my back to the terrifying vision and pacing a fewe feet, continuing my call.

"…that…rocket that chased me that one time? Well, there was another one."

I watched my black shoetips graze the platform for a few feet, before I took a step and watched me toe swing short of hitting a purple high heel. I glanced back up as the speaker chirped into my ear.

Once again. That featureless, death-wishing face, staring into mine with a tinge of pure fury around the corners of the glowing crimson eyes.

And once again, I gave her the 'Just a sec' index finger and turned, walking a few more steps as I finished.

"…Well, 'Nuff of that, just tell the folks that I'm…"

Something poked me in the side. Slowly, as Kirby listed off a possible excuse, I turned to see what it was. Hey, I wonder if it's…?

She was perched on the railing in front of me. Not sitting, not standing, but crouched down on the balls of her feet like a cornered animal, thin arms spread to the side as her clawed fingers feathered out toward both sides of the platform. Trapping me. Every curvy inch of her, the same shade of black-purple. Like looking into a shadow.

Her supermodel neck was stretched out to the front like a wild dog, and on the end of her, it spiky head was hanging inches from my own. I glanced down fo a second, noticing a slight white tinge around her fanged line of a mouth before looking back up into her wild red eyes. Discreetly, I put a hand over the body of my phone before leaning closer to the demon's twisted mask and whispering, eye to eye.

"…You mind? I'm _trying_ to use the phone here...'Gimme a sec'."

Insead of nodding, or saying she'd call back, she screamed full force into my face.

"…_You…must…suffer!"_

Still, covering the phone, standing there tapping my foot, I nodded quickly. Just wanting to get it over with.

She went right on screaming, lunging forward until our noses nearly touched. I could smell at least three types of mints on her breath.

"…_You ruin my business…you harass my partner…you make a mockery of my unbeatable plan…!"_

…another quick nod from me…I _really _want to hear Kirby's punchline…

she finished, sending froth spraying out around my chin from the force.

"_You went through my PURSE, you little sicko! May not be a real doctor, but I can tell you right now, you'll probably end up WEARING one you…you…CLOSET-CASE!"_

Two quick-nods later…I politely uncover the phone.

"..Be right back…"

I tapped the hold button, which rang out a mechanical piano note. As she crouched there, ready to bite my face off, I depsosited the phone in my pocket before turning to face her again.

Nearly touching our eyes together, my smirk widened as I cleared my throat and asked.

"Tell me, 'Doctor' Spectra…could a potential interior designer do _this?"_

Her pinprick eyes, faltered slightly from burning rage to slight curiosity. Then, her face disappeared from my close-up perspective as my fist collided head-on with her flat temple and sent her flying sideways, off her feet, off the railing, and off the fire escape.

As her purple figure pinwheeled off the side of the building entirely like a paper doll, the right fist she'd just met continued to arc around m body, finishing with my right elbow bent over my left shoulder, completely turned sideways out of my last stance.

Right hook. To the face. One of the easiest punches to see coming a mile away.

Unless…you plant yourself an inch away, where you can't see a damn thing. That's when it flat out takes your head off.

As the purple shadow became tangled in its own limbs, spiraling wildy towards the steet below, I watched from my finishing stance with a mixture of recognition at the accomplished nice shot, and the strangest feeling that I was forgetting something.

As she hit the branches of a tree hanging over a sidewalk, my right fist opened and snapped two fingers before reaching into my jacket and pulling out a light pink, flat-profiled circular case. I quickly leaned out over the railing, waving the disc in the air so the human-shaped kite stuck in those tree branches could see it before yelling.

"HEY! Here's in case your boyfriend ever forgives you for blowing him up!"

With that, I pulled back before flinging the tin discus out into the portrait skyline, watching it gracefully descend towards the psychologist-decorated tree before tuning away entirely, pulling out my phone and flipping it open as I mumbled, shaking my head to myself.

"…Birth control…for a ghost? Geez…"

With that, I tapped the hold button and sighed.

"Back…"

A few seconds of blank staring later.

"…Uh…yeah…I threw the pills at her…"

…Am I _that _predictable?


	35. Chapter 35

Disclaimer; See previous entries

(Auhtor's Notes: It's been…another two months. Don't ask, I know, I'm a terrible person. Here is another part of this extra long(currently up to 40 pages) chapter just to let you know I'm alive. He rest of it will be up hopefully by tonight, that kid I've been taking care of academically is now on Summer Break. He passed all his classes, after nearly failing four of them. That's what I've been doing instead of fanfiction. Helping this kid, who is also a fighter I have been training for most of his short career, get by in a rough situation. I also went through a funeral, a handful of problems at work including a seasonal job change, but all that is backseat to keeping a kid from dropping out of high school like I did at his age. Enjoy these…few extra pages onto the end of an existing chapter, more to come very soon with my now impossibly clean schedule, and most importantly, I have not stopped writing. It's been slow going, but I will never give this up out of pure selfishness, which it may have looked like this long while. Review if you're still around to read, and thank you.)

One Week Later

Once again, the limp hand flexed against its own fingers, holding onto life. And once again, it failed to make its message known. He would rather die than give in to defeat.

And man, was it getting old…

A shrill, but gravelly yell from right above the survivor's ear

"…Just TAP already!"

My aunt's dojo. The night is young, the shutters are sealed, and the ceiling lights are being used for the second time since we opened. This place always closes after dark, it just does. Despite having bluntly severed a few dozen ties to her Karate upbringing, Maria was still a bit old fashioned about how she ran the place. For instance, no scheduled classes or lessons. You show up when you show up, and it better be early. No clocks, no watches, and anything that tells time has to be turned off, put into sleep mode or set to stun before you exit the locker room. This wasn't her idea. We all just pinned it up in the men's bathroom after that one guy lost that tooth because he asked how much time he had left in a sparring session.

We have a no-face rule. She says it was an accident, but who the heck trips over a bad toenail and ends up stomping a guy's head into the floor close to eight times?

…Okay, so maybe _once, _but on more than one occasion?

This was back before I left with Walt. Kirby stayed around because she was actually close to getting a black in her first style, and also because dropping gymnastics left her with literally six more hours of free time every day including weekends. After figuring in her cat-like reflexes and equally cat-like sleeping habits, that left her with…an annoying gap between whatever after-school dance program was going on and voice lessons at night. While I was off getting my head bashed in around the country, she was bouncing around all day and setting promotion records in Western-adapted _capoeira. _The ancient African martial art that later developed into…gymnastic breakdancing. The girl manages to stay off one self-destructive lifestyle, and she just twirly-backflips right out of the pan into the inferno to a chorus of bongo drums.

Our aunt/teacher has enough connections that you could study most styles without having to leave that storefront gym of hers. When you're a former full-contact champ who hitchhiked through all of Japan and about one tenth of China, all it takes it a sturdy address book, a reliable ballpoint pen, and a few bored friends to run about twenty styles of somehow intact martial arts out of a single association. The trick? We don't write each style in soap all over the windows. So what if we're the cornerstone of martial arts in this region, who cares. No matter what you study, all the teachers and students alike answer to the tiny Hispanic chick who recently reasoned menopause is a valid excuse for homicide in the American court system.

And out of the blue, she called everyone she considered a competent student and told us to show up after dark on a Friday night. I actually just came to make fun of Kirby, but I checked my voicemail after I got in, turns out I was actually on the guest list.

…And I was supposed to wear my uniform.

So, before any of the instructors showed up, I just slipped into the back room and walked out wearing a brand-new, ultra-starched black gi. This was the new standard that had somehow replaced the one she'd given me a week before kicking me out again. We didn't change any names, didn't add any new styles, we just started wearing black instead of white.

An hour later, I was leaning against a bare white wall, adjusting the front flap of my stolen and still tag-adorned outfit as I watched two of my heavier-set peers…lie on the ground, one holding the other around the neck with a bent elbow as the obvious loser changed colors every few seconds because he refused to just tap the mat and end his misery.

Did I mention that they were both wearing _camoflauge? _

I'm not kidding.

Same style gi as mine, somewhat baggier, both decked out in digitally designed military camo. The one in the arm-lock, was sporting black and grey splotches while his new owner was sporting the classic tan, green and brown.

…It gets better…

Leaning against the wall-sized shutters that folded flat to look like wooden paneling, was another group of early arrivals who were watching the same pathetic grappling match with the same practiced half-smirk we'd all copied straight off the sensei. Nearly flat-line, this is a dojo after all, but with the right cheek slightly flexed to hint at something like a smile. Formal. Dignified. And it saves us the hassle of opening our mouths to tell Mr. Metro-Camo that he's a moron. I think she picked it up in Tokyo along with that glow-in-the-dark tattoo she only shows relatives, favorite students and…Me, apparently.

I was alone against the farthest wall from the windows, while a group of about fifteen had spread themselves between the front door and the split doorway to the lockers. Half of them were watching the impromptu sparring match while the other half was glancing at each door every few seconds for any sign of some one older than twenty one to show up. One in particular was planted right beside the painted door to the back room with her eyes fixed on the handle for any sign of movement. Her bleached eyebrows seemed to visibly bounce every time some one yelled something to each other or to the grapplers. She had a somehow less bleached ponytail strapped tightly against the top of her neck. No make up, no necklace chain peeking out behind her collar, not even a painted toenail. Everything inch of her (…Probably around five foot, every non-Kirby I meet is usually short) frame matched up with an anatomy chart down to the way she stood with her heels together and plain-trimmed toes out to the sides, head tilted to give a profile view of the human head.

And as if she couldn't get any plainer, she was wearing a perfectly-sized, perfectly fitted yet shape-concealing silk robe of sorts tied around her square frame, draping everything from her neck to her ankles in carefully cleaned white except for the thick black ribbon tied around her middle, which was bent into an immaculate half-pretzel in the front as she played sentry to an already looted storeroom that was probably picked over before she even showed up. At the exact moment the sun went down. Like the voicemail told her to.

Akido. Which is Japanese for 'LOOK AT ME! I'M A BORING WHITE PERSON WHO LIKES RAMEN!'. Hate those guys. That one in particular chewed me out not only for borrowing a uniform from the family business, but for tying my belt the wrong way.

A few steps behind the white-draped maiden, was a similar-built and similar-sized male who was postured in a perfect parody of her at-attention, paper towel roll between shoulder blades stance. Unlike the tanned and bleached Asian-wannabe, the spoof artist was an obvious Korean with a light-brown complexion and even darker hair. He had intense, somewhat rounded features that drew attention away from the fact he was stripped bare to the waist and clad only in a pair of dark yellow short-shorts and matching hand-wraps which were hanging off because he didn't bother clipping them.

Muay Thai kickboxing. Down to Earth, tell it like it is, and they'll do it with their fly unbuttoned and between jokes about a Rabbi and a blindfolded Priest on a surfboard. Excellent fighters, terrible gentlemen. This one in particular had made fun of the way I walked after Ms. Akido chewed out my belt-line.

Next up against the wall, I was casually glancing down it like a police line-up, was a younger man who was peering over the head of the shorter Thai fighter at the stiff watching the door. He was some random European, brown haired and eyed, and topping around six foot six. His broomstick-shaming arms were crossed over his ribbed chest as he flaunted a loose black robe hanging off each joint in two distinct shirt/pants pieces. Instead of a functioning belt, he simply had a dark red sash hanging off a shoulder around his chest as he slowly glanced from the Thai to the Otaku, trying to figure out which to make fun of first.

…Uh…Chinese? They have literally a thousand styles up there. Eight hundred of them are named Kung Fu. Go ask a sensei, I'm on my lunch break.

Unlike the other two, he'd just given me a cold shoulder. The more civilized of the styles.

My eyes kept drifting to the side, counting off each costumed student in turn until I'd swung my eyes around three corners and ended up back at the guarded door.

Besides the idiots on the mat, no two people were dressed the same. Male, female, robes, gi, trunks, belts, sashes, sombreros, skirts, silk, satin, cotton, every variation of the theme was standing around waiting for some one to walk in and explain why we'd been asked to show up. I briefly glanced over as a satin-robed girl with a wooden sword stuck through her belt walked regally right up to the sprawled wrestlers and dramatically swung one sandaled foot into the loser's shoulder, slamming his hand down and ending the pointless struggle once and for all. As the grey-splotched fighter got to his feet, face going red as he started yelling at the straight-faced fencer about how she belonged in a kitchen, my patience finally gave out and I just let my gaze fall down to the floor.

The loose cuffs of my black pants stared up at me, reminding me of how insanely out of place I looked.

As you can see, once you make your mark on your respective style, the dress code goes from plain gi to whatever the hell you can get off the internet. Everyone in that rainbow of a room started out in a white (Recently changed black) outfit that they probably just stole out of the back room like I just had. Now that they were all masters according to their paperwork, the only piece of clothing that carried over from their training was the belt. Black. Tied around the waist or the torso, carefully knotted on the right side, never on the front like you'd wear a normal belt. No matter who you were or what you wore, the belt was tied at the side. Since this place never runs group classes, this kind of gathering was probably the first of its kind. All the black belts and sashes, finally united in a small mob that chattered like a school cafeteria during Spirit Week.

And way off in the corner, not a single soul within ten feet, was me. I had my arms crossed, straining the undersized sleeves of the shirt to their moral limit as the rest of me just slumped into the groove where the two walls met. I'd taken off my shoes when I came in, my vein-lined feet were idly slapping the floor every few seconds to keep from falling asleep. The back of my head was against the wall, propping my head up in a proud position while the rest of me just slumped up against the wall like a two hundred pound broom.

Glancing down without moving my head, I could see a splotch of color on the front of my black outfit that quickly caused my eyes to jump back to the floor and start scanning the fashion show again.

Tied around my waist, knot to the side, stained wherever the threads hadn't fallen off entirely, was a brown belt I'd been wearing like a scar ever since I decided to come back here.

Approximately twenty three black belts, in twenty two different styles and forms of learned combat, and that brown belt in the rookie suit off by himself in the corner while everyone tries not to look at him.

I was starting to wish I was the guy who wouldn't tap out.

Through the dull roar of the crowded room, I heard the locker room doors slam closed. I swung both blue eyes over with a half-sigh. For a second I just stared out the right side of my face, before letting my left eyebrow drift up to take the tension off.

New arrivals. And…they were actually dressed alike

The first thing I noticed was a small pack of central colors glaring out of the white doorway of the lockers. As my eyes adjusted, and they walked out into the main chamber, I could see it was a group of four people of varying heights, each wearing a colored gi identical to the one I'd just stolen. Except colored completely in one tone each. Blue, red, green, and brown respectively, each with the ever popular black stripe right around the beltline. I discreetly glanced at each face in turn, looking back down at the black floor padding a second later.

No one who's tried to kill me before. That's a plus.

Two of them, the taller ones in red and brown, were both dirty blonde guys with light brown eyes and an equal share of freckles thrown around their faces and necks. They were brothers, a year apart, and currently taking turns smacking the other in the arm over something I hadn't heard. The shortest guy was an olive-skinned Latino with the infamous dark eyes and his hair grown out and pulled into a two-inch braid against his neck. He was probably just about five eight, but built like a squared tank with his thick wrists hanging out of his navy blue sleeves and a vein pulsing on his neck from whatever the heck he for warm-ups.

And the shortest _person _of the foursome, in green, was a somewhat scrawny blonde girl with a shoulder-length braid hanging over one shoulder as she craned her neck back to watch her gigantic friends argue with their hands. The blue-gi Latino turned to her, almost at her height with how he slouched, and shared a knowing headshake with his fellow intellectual.

These guys were the sport-fighters. The personal prodigies of Sensei herself. Between the four of them, they had close to thirty eight full-contact tournament wins ranging from MMA to the more intense forms of Karate and kickboxing. And if their fashion sense didn't set them above everyone else, their fight records did.

I mean, they actually _have _fight records.

And if I hadn't quit when I had, I'd be walking right there with them with a black stripe and a fancy gi. I'd probably be between the two tall guys, smacking them both upside the head while arguing with the Latino over whose aunt makes the best salsa.

But trust me on this, they're pretty tough. They were the only volunteers Maria got when I walked in and asked for a few sparring partners to tag-team the living crap out of me.

The second they walked out of the lockers, the people on each side of the door shifted a bit to their side. Like they were violently ill and could pass it on.

Or like they'd make you _wish _you were violently ill.

By the time the slapping fight had ended and the two shorter fighters had shared a joke, the two wrestlers had cleared off the mat so they could walk over the area that had just been swept off with that one guy's hairline.

As the rainbow of fear settled itself against the wall about ten feet away from the corner I was wedged into, the rest of the room went back to chattering at full volume. Still peering around the room out of boredom, as my eyes swung in their direction I took a sharp glance at the hand of one of the tall blondes, which was fanned out on the wall while he slouched down to talk to the obviously uninterested girl.

I noted a small ring of colored cloth circling his ring finger before glancing back at the rest of the room, looking just as bored as that poor girl who has to listen to that guy's come-on about that scar he picked up in Thailand. The one that looks like a bike-chain cut. The kind you get from falling off a bike, not the street fight with pool cues like he's telling her about.

And while I had been checking to see if Blondie's knuckle had healed, something the size of a large truck must have torn through the middle of the dojo. I felt my eyebrow snap up into position as I saw a scattered pile of costumed characters clumped into the corner between the lockers and the wall I was leaning my right arm against.

I let the other brow join his brother, wondering what the heck happened while I was looking in the other direction as a faint rasp made itself known somewhere in the back of my head, rattling off the dialogue of an insightful memory.

_The crowd can see things you can't. It's called perspective. The less you pay for the ticket, the higher perspective. And they don't know what they're perspecting at. When they start cheering for a hit, you weave. When they start booing, don't stop hitting the guy. And when they throw a glass at you on the way out, catch it, tip your hat to the guy and thank him for the souvenir. They hate that._

...Whatever you say, Sir…

'_Phantom! My mother did NOT name me 'Sir'. She called me 'Wally'. Just meet me half- way here and stick to 'Walt', will 'ya? It's bad enough that my girls call me 'Daddy', I don't need you Sir-ing me into the retirement home. _

Yessir.

…_Damn it, Alan...Remind me to buy you a sense of humor if you ever win a title. Pretty sure they have gift cards for that._

Yessir'.

…_Hey Blue-Eyes, you use a funnel to get into that camisa or did you paint it on with shoe polish?_

Wait…Walt never called me '_Blue-Eyes'_ when he was making awkward comments about how my clothes rarely fit…He usually stuck to…

…Wait…he didn't speak Spanish, either…and he was more of a low tenor than a mezzo-soprano…

Oh, _mierda!_

GAAUGH, MY LEGS!

A sudden pressure cutting into the back of knees made my vision blur into a wipe of colors before the black flooring flew at me and I turned my head, instinctively fearing for the structure of my nose.

My ear bounced against the mat, the thud barely echoing through my skull before that voice in the back of my head spoke again. This time, it was more _above _my head instead of behind it.

"_¿Tenga un viaje agradable?"_

Something had cut right into my knees, folding me over before slamming me right onto my stomach. Then, it asked me if I had a nice trip.

And it really needs to cut its toenails.

As I struggled to focus my vision, which was basically a vertical line of covered legs and bare feet, my jaw clamped shut in mid-hiss.

"_Offa' me, now!"_

The ringing in my ears was quickly replaced by a giggle that put wind-chimes to shame. The pain in my back slowly went to an ache, which was quite a relief even though I could not breathe. I felt the backs of my hands touching the mat somewhere next to my waist. I must have fell like a tree.

The giggling subsided as I pried my eyes open, hoping to see either the Pearly Gates or a blunt object within reach.

Instead, I just saw a bunch of pant legs…like a polyester-cotton forest of color towering around my fallen form…A sharp, Latino voice.

"He ayight'?"

I'd just managed to swallow a small wisp of air into my pressed lungs. I wasted it on an impulsive comeback.

"…Yeah, yeah, my doctor says that being a doormat is great for hypertension. GET HER OFF ME!"

At the very front of the immense square foot of pressure on my upper back, there was a slight cotton rustle against my skin.

Dang it, you'd think she'd know I'm not ticklish by now!

Another voice from above. Much clearer, but half the pace.

"Um…are you guys, like…Sensai's kids?"

Still kissing the mat…I slowly rotated my wrists, getting my palms against the floor and bending my elbows slightly.

I glanced down my side at my left palm as it carefully pressed against the mat. Both eyes slid shut, concentrating on the texture of the flooring under my hands.

…Once chance at this…

This time in clear English, my assassin chimed.

"_Actually,_ I'm her niece…and _this_ is just some white guy we keep around to…"

The sound of synthetic wood cracking against its bearings. A musical yelp, ending with a hollow thud, followed in turn by an echoing slap of bare feet landing flat on padding.

…And then, applause.

What? Not happy with just the soundtrack? Fine, I'll skip to when I opened my eyes.

I was now standing, crouched at the knees a good meter forward of where I'd been laying. Both my arms were spread to my sides, my hands slowly twitching from the sudden strain as I tried to slow my breathing through visibly gritted teeth. I glanced around for a second before focusing dead straight ahead. My eyes were now locked on a purple-clad figure standing just a few feet in front of me in what looked like the finish of an Olympic-style floor routine. From behind, I could just make out the back of her tunic-like purple vest and pants, the two golden brown arms stretched out to the sparse crowd of costumed fans, and the jet-black braid bouncing lightly against her lower back, catching the light and shining with dull twinkles.

…At the end of the tight braid…holding the knot together...was a grey permanent marker with a clip attached to its light-blue cap.

After a few more seconds of milking the applause, she turned her head and shot me a one-eyed glance that twinkled with a green brilliance that put her brand of hair conditioner to shame.

Standing back behind the instant star, the pain in my back finally going away, I found myself pondering more philosophy.

…A green-eyed guy with a bad bleach job flies around the city fighting crime and supporting the local leather industry, nobody cares. No headlines, no paranormal investigators, no angry letters from cow lovers, not even a little blurb on the news about close to a dozen serials and one-time killers on the run suddenly turning up with a few broken bones and a sudden fear of the dark.

But when some random green-eyed CUBAN CHICK jumps a guy when he's not looking, and he flips forward so she can fly off and spring off the wall right over his head, everyone just starts clapping.

I FLEW here to save the bus fare from Aron's place, while invisible, while playing Frog-Quest. This girl just kicks off a wall and doesn't break her neck because her illegitimate ancestor was apparently feline. Ahe gets the key to the city dipped in milk chocolate.

…Maybe if I started showing just a bit more cleavage while splattering ecto-mutants, we'd be on the same playing field…

After giving me a wink I never asked for, she swung her head back to face the rest of the school and dipping into a low bow in one practiced move. The clapping started to die down as the a group in the corner found something else to look at, while Kirby flipped back up, sending her braid swinging over her right should like a scarf as she once again turned back to look at me and with a circular twirl of her fingers, told me to do the same.

By this time, I was plainly standing behind her, arms crossed, brow lowered, and my eyes glancing around the bare walls like I didn't know that clocks didn't exist in here.

As the last clapper got tired and went back to arguing with some one in a kempo sash, she spun out of her finish to face me with her bent wrists on her hips. For a second, she stared me down with her heart face bent into an imitation of my scowl.

Then, with a squeal that made my eardrums want to play Russian Roulette 2 out of 3 and a flash of purple and black, I was standing in the empty corner of the chattering dojo with a six foot Cuban wrapped around my shoulders and waist like an electric sweater-vest set to 'snuggle-kill'.

Seriously, I've got to stop listening to Wasp complain about her dad's inventions, it's affecting my wisecracks.

A few seconds of me still glancing around for a clock and trying to ignore the pointed chin digging into my neck and the candy-scented shampoo smell under my nostrils, she hopped off of me and asked as she once again stuck the landing with a grin.

"A reverse jackknife into a front flip…and you hit the mat like a staple gun, Clutz."

I hadn't moved. Finally giving up on finding that invisible clock, I gave her a tired glare and shrugged, hearing a faint click as my shoulders realigned. My voice came out a bit rougher than usual. I hadn't actually spoken to anyone the entire day. Before she landed on my back and used my lungs like an accordion, anyway.

"...I haven't done that stuff since I was eight. Gimme' a break, my parents don't let me back-flip to the bathroom like yours do."

Her grin shrunk into a toothy smirk as some one off to the side of our face-off cleared his throat.

"Uh…we're still here…"

I snapped my glare over to my right, quickly feeling my brow loosen as the primary colors nearly blinded me.

The full-contact team, all four colors, were standing in a line next to my cousin and I while the rest of the school had migrated off to the other corners where they belonged. One of the tall ones had his hand raised to indicate he'd just spoken. I waited a second, figuring Kirby would take over, but I finally broke and asked the blank-eyed foursome.

"…And?"

The short Latino, who seemed to be the clearest minded color, locked his nearly black eyes on me as he fought with his accent to ask.

"…Arn…you tat' own guy? Wit' de'…"

He kept his eyes on me, trying to find the English word to finish his question. Quickly, I cut him off, closing the language gap.

"_¿... El ' Sello De la Marina '? Sí, ése era yo."_

For a few seconds, he kept the stare going. And without a warning or even a warning tremor, his mouth cracked open into a crooked white grin as he let out a loud guffaw, quickly raising an arm and smacking the female on the shoulder to tell the Spanish illiterate that I was the 'Navy SEAL' from the locker room. Before he could stop laughing at the fact I spoke Spanish, the tall twin who hadn't spoken yet loudly called out, with both his eyes squinted at Kirby.

"…That your boyfriend's bike out front?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the way Kirb' froze at the ill-planned question. She was still smiling, of course. But one good look at her eyes gave it away. It's always the eyes with her.

A dull thud drew my gaze back over to the fighters.

…The curious tall guy was now bent over to clutch at his ribcage, turning red from lack of oxygen as his stoic twin simply adjusted his sleeve as if he hadn't just elbowed his brother into a light coma.

As much I tried not to…I smiled. For all of three seconds before two chewed fingernails clamped onto my ear and jerked me onto one foot, quickly sending me into a rolling stumble as the _Cubanita_ simply walked ahead of me, pulling my ear along like she hailing a cab with two fingers. She went about ten feet and stopped next to the middle of the deserted wall, turning my head around by the one ear so I couldn't see the color-guard behind us trying to hold back their laughter.

As I swatted her hand off my burning ear with a piercing scowl, she let it drop onto my shoulder so she could pull her face to within an inch of mine as she hissed.

"Where have you been?"

I found myself scowling at an angelic, tanned face that was looking back at me with its upper teeth cutting its bottom lip and its eyes wide, showing a film of new tears along the corners.

The tormented face quickly sent mine into a wince, before I forced myself into a weak smile. I tried to break eye contact as I rattled off.

"Aron and Waspy let me crash on their couch. Haven't…actually slept on it, but still..?"

Before I could even step back from her, she'd gotten her other hand on my spare shoulder. No escape.

All I could see was her eyes. They were both wide enough to show the whites on every side. I suddenly noticed the way her pupils kept shimmering, little sparkles flashing even as she stared me down.

…She was trying not to cry.

If she hadn't been nose-to-nose with me, I wouldn't have heard her whisper under her breath. I'd forgotten why I was trying to run away. The eyes.

"You just said you were staying out for the_ night_ because of Jasmine…that was a week ago, Alan."

I opened my mouth to explain.

…Nothing but air.

She kept on. I felt her grip tighten against my shoulders, folding the black cotton between her fingers.

The shimmering became brighter. Her voice hadn't changed, making it only more painful to watch.

"...It made me remember my dad."

Oh God…

Her dad. My uncle. The cop, the detective, the carpenter.

…The one who took over a dozen bullets to the torso…The vest tore like paper.

Aunt Janet didn't find out that he'd been hurt until they called her asking if she wanted Last Rites.

By the time Janet and Kirby got to see him in the hospital…the priest was already finished. The doctors gave him about a day. The nurses said a few hours.

Actually…a nurse told Janet that they were too late. Kirby had to watch what happened when they told her.

A couple years later, after things somewhat settled down, we were sanding a table on the roof and he told me what happened. One minute, he was running through a doorway in the last secure stage of a bust. Then…the guns going off…everything went black. And he could hear his wife telling him not to be dead. _Begging_ him not to be dead.

…He's not dead. He's a miracle of modern medicine. He's a forcibly retired detective who wakes up every day and reaches for the gun on the nightstand that he threw away the day he got home from the hospital. He's a bored, out of shape, poker-playing old man of fifty who will teach every little nephew he has everything that he knows about what he used to do.

I was watching tear after tear roll down her cheeks and leaving trails of cracking makeup. Just watching, it was all I could do.

Even through the tears…that same soothingly sadistic chirp. It held on for a moment longer before giving way to a light gasp.

"If you ever pull that again, just…run out on your own like that_, I swear to God I'll…!"_

The tears had sunk back into her eyes, which were now two green bullets loaded in the chamber. I could feel my sleeves stretching against my back under her nails, she could have torn them off if she had gotten a better grip earlier.

For close to eight seconds, I stood there. I couldn't breathe. All I could do was wait for it. Every second, I could just see more anger in the eyes she was forcing me to look into.

She finally bent her lip to finish the threat… thento sigh as her clawed hands leapt off my shoulders, swooping behind me to join behind my back. With yet another graceless stumble on my part, she pulled me into a rib-cracking hug. Over her shoulder, I scanned the room for the hundredth time that hour, seeing that no one was looking in our direction. She was just…hugging me, just like she hugs the mailman or that foreign girl who washes towels at the gym. But for some reason she'd turned herself toward the wall when she grabbed me. She'd turned her back on everyone but me.

I soon learned why.

A sudden noise nearly made me jump out of her grip, which had tightened a few seconds after she got her chin into shoulder.

The muffled sob sent a chill right through that shoulder, right through my spine into my heels.

"Just…don't do it again…"

…She'd gone from the perky gymnast, the performer…to…_this?_

Damn. That girl could act, too.

I couldn't move. She'd finally let go of me both physically and psychologically, and in her condition that was quite a feat. As she just leaned against me, trying not to let go, all I could do was stop looking to see if anyone saw us, and just close my eyes and wish that I couldn't screw this up any further.

Slowly, I felt her arms slip off me as she leaned back onto her heels. I slid open one eye cautiously, seeing she was now just lazily looking down at my attire with a carefully drawn eyebrow raised over the other in honest pity. She glanced up and saw me looking, which caused her to quickly fold her arms before I could even open the other eye. Before I could say anything to defend my stupidity, she killed the subject with a coy sigh.

"Still wearing the brown belt?"

Looking down at the thread-impaired strip of brown fabric knotted at the side around my waist, I just let my head fall into a nod.

Folding her arms tighter, she nodded down so that her scarve-like braid bounced against the black stripe that divided the midsection of her violet demonstration outfit. It was the only item she hadn't custom-sewn herself for function and flair. And…to get her daily dose of cosplaying in.

"You know…she kinda' _gave _you a black belt off her own gi. I think she wants you to wear it, Sherlock…and…where, exactly, did you get your stuff if you haven't been home all week?"

Not missing a beat or expressing any shame what so ever, I shot back.

"Aunt Maria left the back room unlocked. And Aron has a brown bathrobe. _Haga la matemáticas. "_

Her eyes instantly shot out of their half-open and tear-stained state, boggling first at the offending article, then back up at my face which was framed by my shrugged shoulders. Then back down to the belt. Her sharply rounded, frowning mouth twitched at the corner.

Seeing an opening, I added, not noticing my old smirk forming as I said it.

"That…and I don't think she was thinking clearly when she gave me the belt. I mean, the last time a menopausal woman gave me something out of generosity, she reported it stolen and used the insurance to redecorate a condo."

The lip-twitch froze. A sudden flash of green in the direction of the door, and the parking area behind it, before flashing back to where I waited with a smirk in progress. She asked in a voice lower than her last whisper.

"Valerie…?"

As the smirk finishing taking over the left side of my face, I simply nodded.

With a high-pitched howl, the former gymnast and trained acrobat dropped like a sack of mulch.

By the time she got back to her feet, dark streaks were running down from both her eyes as she panted from the sudden laugh attack. She wheezed.

"She…really did that?"

I'd settled myself against the wall during her fit of insanity, examining the back of my right fist as I rattled back.

"Yeah. Wasp told me the whole thing at cards last night. Explains a lot, really…"

Leaning my head down to squint at an old scar running between my third and last knuckle, I finished.

"Here I was thinking she liked me, or was somewhat sorry for putting a gun to my head while I was using the bathroom…and then she goes and told the insurance company that the thing was stolen by a client."

Grinning earring to earring, mascara tears and all, she tilted her head down and chirped.

"…A client?"

Swiveling my fist to examine a different set of scars, I corrected.

"A _ghost._ Her insurance plan covers that if there's documented proof of the spectre in question existing, I think she uses the same insurance company my folks use. She had the same magnet calendar thingy." White hair, green eyes, bad tan, she actually filed a theft report for it."

"She said it was _you?"_

I popped m shoulders into a shrug.

…Then, remembering the last two hours of that conversation, I quickly raised a hand to show I wasn't done yet.

"…Call me crazy, but hear me out he…_Are_…you allowed to do that?"

Kirby finished dabbing away her ruined make-up…with the black belt she'd just pulled off her outfit. As she wiped off the last black streak and went to tie it back on, she nodded for me to keep going. I managed to keep my jaw from cracking as I realized this woman had been given a second degree black belt to abuse in the first place.

"…N…ever mind. You get tickets for tonight?"

She was leaning her side, finishing the last loop of the belt knot before her ears pricked, popping her head up as her hand quickly raised to produce them…

Before I caught her wrist before it could get above her waist. She made a noise between a scoff and a snort, glaring up at me only to get a good view of my neck. I'd grabbed her hand while looking at the ceiling. I drew out a sight.

"Just…say you have them."

She jerked her wrist out of my grip as she made a low growl that could only come from eye rolling.

"Alan! This thing has a front pocket!"

I kept the sigh going, still looking up at the lighting panels.

"…You just _assume _it's down my shirt…real open-minded…"

…Down to the last bit of air, here…Vision going blurry…

"…Okay, so it's an inside pocket! So they…wouldn't fall out?"

I slowly crossed my arms. Actually, I was trying to push out a bit more air, this was one heck of a sigh.

"It's not like I took a money clip and…"

Her voice suddenly went down a pitch, losing the accent completely.

"My favorite students! One, standing around with her hand in her shirt and the other staring up at the ceiling like a turkey. Makes me proud to have beaten up your mothers. Really, it does."

The record-breaking sigh cutting off sharply, still craned back to look at the ceiling, my right arm shot off my left wrist in a loose, quick-draw of a punch off to my right.

At the exact same moment, there was a whistling rustle as Kirby threw some sort of kick. Probably while looking up at me still, most likely still looking for where she put the tickets. And she was aiming for the same swollen head I was.

And like always, she just…_CRACK!_

Right as my wrist arced for the follow-through, it was like some one snapped my entire arm like a whip. The calm, almost serene stare I had fixed on the ceiling was crushed into a grimace as the pain hit me before the bone even settled back in its socket.

A rush of stale air later, I was hunched forward on one knee, gripping my right shoulder with my left hand with knuckles so white you could make out the veins. A few feet away, a crumpled mass of purple silk was trying to tie itself out of a pretzel knot, whimpering like a kicked kitten.

Standing between us, arms folded behind her back and lips stretched to each ear, stood a travel-sized woman of barely five foot one, clad in an outfit perfectly identical to mine save the size and the fact her front-knotted belt was black with a thin white or silver line running through its center.

Bending at the waist in a hybrid of a bow and a sympathetic lean, she looked our tight-jawed forms over with two black eyes before showing a strip of white teeth as she practically spat.

"Twelve feet, three hundred pounds between you two...And you get it handed to you by a hundred pound shortie like me. While you're putting yourselves back together, gimme' a quick thirty just because I love you guys so much."

Snapping her eyes closed and tilting her head, showing off a braid about half the length of Kirby's but the same true color, she flashed another grin before swiveling on her heels and formally marching off to address the rest of her students.

Finally deciding that everything was back in its place, I just hoped some one brought a tranq gun. And a few clips of darts, maybe for each pound she weighed.

Just a yard away from where I'd collapsed, Kirby had managed to unfold herself onto her back as she clutched her left leg against her chest. Her eyes were half-open, breathing through her teeth as she tried to ease the pain that probably rivaled what happened to my arm.

As I slowly pried my white fingers off my rapidly swelling shoulder, I looked over at my cousin with and whispered between breaths.

"The hell was that about! She usually just…dodges."

Trying to get a good grip on her ankle through the slim-cut parachute pants her outfit featured, she hissed back.

"...Estrogen…Makes us nuts for about the first year…"

Right as I began to push off my grounded arm, I froze, peering up with crooked eyes at her explanation.

"…Wha'?"

Closing her eyes and shaking her head a little as she slowly let go of her leg, she shot back.

"Menopause. Girl stuff. Just don't bother, _Alonso. _"

…We've been saying hi to our aunt like that since we were eight. It's our thing. She used to make a big show of it, but as we got taller and she got older, she just ducked under it.

And metaphase or whatever just made her snap us like twigs. I know enough about estrogen from health class to fear it. This only _adds_ to my phobia.

Estrogen equals pain. Fact.

As I pushed up onto one leg, extending a hand to help Kirby up, another sharp yell from somewhere in the crowd.

"That was a_ fast_ thirty push-ups…!"

You'd think she'd pulled a gun, I hit the ground so fast.

Landing with the bad arm folded behind my back, I started doing push-ups balanced on the front of my left fist, my right leg bent out to keep my balance. About five pushes in, I glanced over to see Kirby doing the old fashioned two handed kind on her palms with the one leg tucked around her other ankle. As we both reached the bottom of the movement and pushed up, we shared another dull glance before swinging our eyes over to the still-standing and uninjured crowd she'd began to form into a half circle along the wall with the shutters.

And half of them were still standing around watching us push like we were candy wrappers drifting in the wind.

We're her favorite students. Hence the hazing.

Twenty Three Pushups Later

The casual, social gathering of part-time fighters had been uprooted and replanted in something similar to a military formation. Three straight rows of bodies, all parallel to a wall looking inward, eight to a side. The social classes were still around, all the Chinese stylists had claimed one side to themselves, and opposite them was the group that actually sparred, including the Full-Contact Four on the end.

Right in the middle of the forward-facing group, along with the rest of the leftovers, I stood with my hands folded behind my back when all I wanted was to fold them around my waist to hide the only colored belt in the building. Everyone as in everyone had their eyes locked on the tan, pointed face of our head teacher. Clad in black, same as me, in a similar if not loose posture despite being the shortest person in the whole dojo.

Right before we'd broke into formation, I'd noticed something a bit off about her outfit. Something white near her waist.

And as she slowly dragged her eyes across the three lines, not moving her face, I took the chance to glance at her belt and back up again before she could notice.

She had a new belt. Black, go figure, with what looked like a white stripe going through the ends of the center-knot on the front.

Right as I began to fight off memories about what happened to her old one, a shrill bark snapped our spines even straighter.

"Eyes straight! This ain't Prom, Kids. You can compare your dresses out in the limousines, just remember to keep those corsages wa…"

Her tight features, currently ratcheted into a military sneer, simply locked in place in mid growl. Her eyes continued picking us off in each line, as she cracked the corner of her mouth open and spoke behind her. Not loud enough for everyone to hear, just audible enough for a bored lip-reader to pick up.

"…Hey…Princess! You talk to Rocky?"

Standing a few feet behind the straight-spined drill instructor in black, watching the ranks from right over her master's head…stood, the chick in the purple getup with the green eyes. She'd been bouncing from heel to heel, trying to dig her nail file out of the folds of her oversized pants while we'd all been trying not to blink. With her hand looped around her own waist, head leaned back to frown at the hidden pockets on her outfit, she simply grunted with the same carelessness her aunt had.

"…_Si…No…"_

Abandoning the quest for the nail file, she stood back up to her full height, flaring her palms out to each side as she looked down at a stone-faced Maria with an instant apology. Even from across the room or even batting an eye, I could read the body language. With how tall she was, it was like reading a billboard.

The pointing towards where a clock would be…

"…I got here late!"

The other hand, waving toward the door…

"The bike is running weird."

And, with a silent pop, a golden thumb bobbing in my direction.

"Should I just…?"

Her teacher's eyes snapping in the same direction as the thumb.

A few seconds later, I let my eyes rise back up with everyone else's, admitting that I'd been watching the exchange. And our aunt simply stared me down from the center of the formation. Not giving anything away, but not shooting anything down. Just staring.

The stare ended with a twitch towards each shoulder. Picking up right where she'd left off, she continued speaking max-volume to her lesser, somewhat more attentive students.

"…I got you all down here, for something special."

Her hands appeared from behind her back, folding over her gi as she glanced down and examined one of the fists propped up on her arms as she went on.

"Everyone in here, is a master. We all have the certificates, we all got the bumper stickers."

She had stepped forward until she was in front of my line. Then, she had began pacing in front of us in a true army-wannabe fashion as her lecture wore on.

"Some of you...seem to think this means that you are better than say, a white belt. You know all the moves, you know the language. You may even teach it to others. You are better than any other belt color. White, yellow, blue, green, red…Black whips 'em all."

Reaching the end of the front line, she lazily spun on one heel and turned back, reaching up to prop her chin in one hand with her arms still folded. As she approached the center of the line, I managed to hold back a yawn.

…Belts…Real exciting. Even those big shiny ones I have under my bed back home. Now…GLOVES! Those are exciting!

"…You're all totally badass. There. I just summed up your entire psyche."

…Laces…Buckles…those weird elastic hybrid deals that never caught on…they're pretty comfortable, really. I think the lack of durability killed it. I went through that pair in about six bag sessions. Pathetic. Laces, those last longer than boxers. Loops, haven't used 'em since I taught Kirby how to lace.

She dropped her hand from her chin, letting them both drop to her sides as she began to bounce in her step slightly, swinging her arms as she approached whatever she'd been going for.

"And, because you're all so talented…Here's our guest of honor, a little brown belt ready to take everything you hit him with!"

Synthetic leather…That's gotta' be against something in the Bible. It would tear the skin on a sparring glove, no chance at anything but hitting bags, and the headgear makes you feel like…

…Odd…I can't seem to breathe through my neck, for some reason...That brings me back to synthetic leather in all its scratchy glory…

Wait…rewind…REWIND! Scene 16: The Brown Belt, like ten seconds in! No, don't pause it, just turn up the volume!

An entire evening of grooming, keeping my mouth shut, and stealing various articles of clothing to blend in…and I end up clutching my neck, trying to kick away a small Latino woman as she tried to drag me out of the line with three fingers clutching the front of my throat. She had her back turned, arm over shoulder, just waiting for me to slip so she could drag me off to the center.

Her pinching sent my voice three octaves higher.

"…Hold it! Stop!"

She swung one foot over, pulling my neck a foot forward as she growled back, ignoring the rows of wide eyed students to lock her black eyes on me.

"Just get up here, I'm trying to prove a point…"

That last tug had made my voice higher than Kirby's. I was now trying to pull her arm off by the wrist, squinting down at her as my feet began to slide.

"…_You really don't want…!"_

A high-pitched grunt, she was leaning forward like she was pulling a cart. Giving up any trace of a formal air, she snapped back.

"Oh, like you have anything…"

Still pulling…

"…To…"

Why was she pausing?

Letting the momentum move my head over her shoulder, I glanced over with a clenched jaw to see if she had her gum stuck or something.

She was…staring ahead…eyebrows tight, biting the bottom of her lip as she slowly let go of my neck.

For a few seconds, I stood there bent over her like a crane while she stayed in a crouched position, just biting her lip.

And just like that, her face fell apart into a loose frown as she let it slip off with a depressed air.

"…Do."

By now, the feeling had returned to my face so I just let my brow take the elevator up to my forehead.

…Like I had anything better to do…?

Why did she say it like…

And then, a flash of wailing electronics echoed through the window glass and she shutters behind us.

A siren.

By the time the first one had passed, I had disentangled myself from my aunt and was now standing full-height behind her, facing the wall that housed the hidden windows as my gaze tightened on the glass door.

Right as the wailing died off, another one picked up and the black behind the door flashed red and blue.

Not taking my eyes off the door, I hissed over my shoulder.

"…How did you…"

A tired, almost bored drawl from the former drill sergeant who was still standing behind me along with twenty of her probably dazed students.

"…Every time I say _that…_Something happens."

Meanwhile, I felt something happening along the side of my face.

My reply finished the smirk I couldn't hold back.

"…Welcome to my world, Short-Stuff."

Before she could rear back and clock me with the business end of her shin, and before Kirby could fall over clutching her sides, the door was swinging shut a storefront behind me as I struggled to run on an ancient sidewalk in bare feet, in the direction the cruisers had been heading.

…A block later, cursing and hopping on the foot that hadn't landed on a sharp piece of old gum, I took a sharp right and ducked into a tight alleyway between the corner office and a small warehouse.

Scraping my foot behind me to try and get the gum off, I briskly walked deeper into the nearly pitch black alcove I'd found, hissing a curse at how the stuff wouldn't come off.

By the time I reached the center of the alley, I could barely make out the cracking brick walls let along my hand in front of my face as I just gave up on the gum and began jogging farther into the alley. Away from the harsh white streetlights and neon, into the last place a human being in the 21st century is supposed to go. A dark, smelly alley in a Hispanic neighborhood.

The second I finally found complete darkness, I slid to a stop when my feet hit something wet. Glancing down and squinting, I was somewhat glad I couldn't see what I was standing in. I shook my head, shrugging my head high as I remarked to the shadows covering me, stroking two sore fingers tentatively against a calloused thumb.

"Times like these…I wish they still had phone booths…"

…A sharp snap. Showtime.

My eyes snapped shut, the foreign chill through my spine not mixing well with the total lack of light.

By the time I opened them, the black abysses of the inner alley had transformed into a grey-on-black mosaic of splotches and patterns that formed a faint mural which looked exactly like the inside of an alley. I glanced out the corner of each side coyly, noting several crooked squares on the brick walls and even a faint design that may have been old spray paint from back before they stopped making it.

Resisting the urge to look down and 'see' what my newly formed shoes were standing in, I looked down at the skeletal gray lines of my hand and its bent fingers before glancing up past the gray waves of my bangs at the gray stripe of sky between the walls of the alley.

One last raspy sigh.

"If this cuts into the marathon, Kirb's gonna' make me wish I'd stayed for the gang beating…"

Not being able to resist a grin as I sprung down into a bent-legged crouch, palms open at my sides, you'd think I'd found a shiny NV-gray penny or something.

"...Oh well, better not get pulled over!"

One quick whooping jump, and the alley was nothing but a dark stripe in the neon-flashing blanket flashing off behind me as I swooped up over the entire shopping district, glancing over my shoulder to see if I could see the red glint of the bike out in front of the studio before swinging my eyes forward and slamming my heels together to take it out of park. Rolling one shoulder down and gently swerving aside to avoid hitting a low high rise that I could have just phased right through, I used the side momentum to break into a few barrel spins before righting myself out and looking down under my for any signs of sirens down on the main avenue striping a hundred feet under me.

A few seconds later and nothing but white headlights. I squinted down, urging myself a few knots faster until the white dots along the road blurred.

Those cars were going about fifty. I'm heading about four hundred feet over the ground level. Figuring in the fact China is now shaped like a giant cartoon cat head and Japan has been converted into a giant trademark symbol, the Earth's gravity would put me about…two fifty an hour.

Sure, I _could _shoot for minimum wage at three or four bucks an hour…I'm trying to spot cop cars, not outrun those freakin' anti-ghost missiles that they apparently sell at flea markets.

There were_ three_ just this week…I've given up on joking about it. The last one had a dang _armadillo _head on the nosecone. The guy must be running out of ideas. I only know what that thing is because it was Walt's college mascot. Next I'll be outrunning Echidna-headed missiles, one of the only other mammals besides the platypus that lays eggs.

A flash of blue off to the side of the red and white ribbon made me nod before swinging my feet under me, floating onto my back and cutting into reverse to the sounds of flapping leather. A quick quarter-mile of slow backtracking, I slowed down even further as I spotted a red and blue heading off on a diagonal from the main street.

Standing upright in the air with my arms folded, I veered my eyes along the path of the emergency vehicle's lights until the dark side path gave way to another lighted clump of retail. A larger, stationary clump of red and blues marked where the party was starting. Raising a finger and tapping it toward a few landmarks, I counted off each district before landing on where the sirens were.

"…And, Hurst's Bank and Retail…Smells like hostages. Crap."

My foot tapped the stale air that you can only find a few hundred feet over the city like it was ceramic tile as I reached into my jacket and felt around for my phone, glaring at a flock of nocturnal pigeons as they narrowly missed my personal airspace, making that weird cooing noise all the way. As I found a smaller zipper-locked pocket, I called after the rapidly retreating flock of feathered rats.

"Like you have a big appointment to miss!"

Closing two fingers around the zipper pull as I glanced back down at the lone red and blue as it reached the others, I could have sworn I saw a speck of green thrown into the patriotic colors of the crisis zone.

My hand froze in mid-zip as my eyes locked on the very green, very real speck on the edge of the semicircle.

…That wasn't green. That was Cold-Cathode, Neon Veridian #6 with a six watt projection mount.

Kicking my feet back behind me and going into a full-speed dive with my fists at my sides, one equally heroic thought completed the pose.

…What were the _Fentons _doing at a bank robbery?

Seventy Three Minutes Later

Now I know why 'Family Teeth Bleaching' night exists…Photo ops.

It was like something you'd put in a Christmas card. From the _future..._

That's what they used to call the twenty first century before it became 'Now'. To think people used to sit around dreaming of flying cars and lasers. A century in the making, and they both sucked. You can't kill some one with a laser, and the average flying car did more killing than it did flying. That's not sarcasm. I did a history report on those things in fifth grade, that decade was the only time in human history where transportation fatalities beat out homicide, suidice and cancer put together.

I'm guessing 'cancer' was slang for illegal drugs, because the politicians always mention it along with crime when they go on about how amazing our society is. They should step out of those bulletproof boxes sometime. Drugs don't grow on plants anymore. You make them out of human genetic material, deals have P.H.Ds nowadays. There are junkies out there whose pain receptors stopped working from how torn apart their chemistry is. Gene hacks will tear you apart on a genetic level, the TV spots have a field day with that whole 'I just wanted to fit in…Now my eyes have hair' thing.

And, about that whole zero-crime thing…This wonderful little monologue was inspired by the fact my family was posing on the police perimeter of a stalled bank heist with injured hostages and shots fired at police officers.

Wait…why was a happily married couple in matching blue jumpers and SWAT-helmets and their green and red suited twin daughters be posing for pictures outside such an unfriendly photo opportunity?

Because when the police returned fire, the bullets went right through the…fedora-clad, pinstriped-suited suspects who were a notable shade of green both before and after the live ammunition failed to knock said hats off their rather shapeless heads.

Behind the nice little posing-pyramid the Fentons are doing for all the flashing diodes from six different news feeds, is the headquarters on wheels for the police department that's tearing its hair out and tying a noose with the clippings over all this. Probably digging around for something to pickle his liver in that cute little mini-fridge they have under the radio console, would be the now black-haired police chief who had to give an interview on why they called the Fentons.

He said that they were the best team for the job.

You know what he must have been thinking? I'll tell you, because I happened to be floating over his shoulder when he slammed the door and told every off-duty trooper who would listened exactly what he _was _thinking.

A) That paranormal specialist that the city usually hires suddenly retired, leaving them with these…well, I'll spare you the language.

(And…that retired specialist is currently upstate with her husband and daughter while their future step-son sits around ranting about that wedding that's never going to come to the guy sleeping on his couch.)

B) The back-up plan, a local specialist who would be willing to lend the force some technology, suddenly lost his entire lab and estate when one of his test-missiles…came back to swap stories, while he was in the bathroom.

(I…uh…you can't prove that was me.)

C) These ghosts were making them look like idiots. Their leader looks like a deranged midget with a cap-gun, and one of the hostages may have broken his arm because the freaks machine-gunned the ceiling to get everyone's attention. The hostages keep disappearing, either they're sneaking out somehow or the unthinkable is going on.

(They're not dead, trust me. They're alive enough to make off-hand fashion comments and demand the withdrawal receipt they originally walked in for.)

The lowdown.

There are currently fourteen taxi-sized, nameless grunts in there with the usual square-heads and tails. They're decked out like gangsters, and using what look like old-fashioned automatics that they either ecto-formed or stole from a museum. Either way, they ran out of ammo.

Their leader…Don't even ask.

And if he curls his lip and says 'Sey?' one more time I'm going to stomp out that cigar while he's still chewing on it.

And Kerri, please read my thoughts. That's not gum. Spit it out.

With a synchronized leap, the pyramid broke off into the usual line formation as my Jim Fenton pressed something on the arm of his navy jumpsuit and spoke into a concealed microphone in the collar.

"Please, hold your cameras…Now for another Q & A Session, this time for the _local_ channels!"

That ultra-glossy, bleached grin…

"You big networks got your contracts down. Now let these rookies have at us."

From three sides, I heard people belting out canned guffaws over each other's heads before they started stepping through the mass of reporters to get back to their labeled vans and RVs. I swung my head to the side to avoid having a shoulder-mounted camera clock me in the temple before swinging it back like a pendulum, locking my eyes up on that trademarked American grin he was flashing the clump of bodies closest to the platform on the back of the RV that had become the media hub of the hour.

I can't believe people used to say I looked like that guy…

Not having to shove past the better-paid reporters, the 'rookies' began waving their hands to get a question while a few just tuned their wrist-mounted recorders to catch everyone else's.

Just trying to blend in, I started pumping my left hand up over the heads of the other media vultures, having a few questions of my own.

A woman nearly as tall as I was across the press-pit received a beckoning finger from the beaming Fenton-In-Charge. She sidled her way to the front and stood before everyone else, holding up her wrist-recorder like she was showing off her watch before calling up to the platform.

"Dr. Fenton!"

...Nah, too easy.

"How does it feel to be called upon by the city to use your talents for the better good?"

This'll be good.

A sharp wink. A camera went off trying to catch it.

"Just a day in the life, Folks. We live for this."

A few spaced applauses, more camera flashes as the twins jumped behind him and gracefully assumed a symmetric pose on each side of their beaming father. Down in the gallery, I actually tasted vomit on the back of my tongue.

Right as the clapping died down and the twins bounced back off to the sidelines, he raised a gloved hand and bounced his index finger for a few seconds before randomly jabbing it down at the press-pit. With that same practiced grin, he called down through the sound system.

"You! With the green hat and the wonderful tan!"

A few seconds of frantic side-glances later, I was standing in front of the others with my green baseball cap pulled down to my nose and my matching green spiral notebook and pen opened to a fresh page. Clearing my throat loudly and clicking my bright green pen a few times, I mumbled up toward the RV-backdoor turned podium.

"Uh…how long you guys been here?"

My hat was pulled low enough that I could barely see the top of my completely blank notebook page. I could hear the awkward whispers snaking around behind me from the actual reporters, and after a short hesitation I heard my father slowly respond.

"Well…we got here at eight, and it's nine forty three in ten seconds."

Hey, he must have liked that watch we got him for Christmas.

Still keeping my hat down, I scratched out a series of crooked lines on my notebook before curling the side of my mouth up and asking in a clearer, yet scratchier tone.

"_Annnd_…have you actually _done _anything?"

I kept scratching out nonsense to look busy.

Soon, the only sound I could hear was the obviously defective ecto-pen scratching lines onto the ecto-paper by simply engraving the lines on with a dull point.

If I'd had a working pen, I would have made a reminder to go home and study some blueprints for a working pen so I could make one for awkward moments like these.

A sharp hiss from right behind my ear.

"_Get behind the line!"_

With a bored sigh, I replied at full volume in that same scratchy voice.

"I'm just getting a story here. If they've done _anything_ but pose for pictures and keep those hostages in danger…I'd like to write about it. I've been here for an hour, when are they actually going to…"

Tilting the hat brim to the side by leaning my neck, I uncovered one side of my vision and peered up at the RV platform.

"What'd ya' call it…'Save the day'? The top floor ceiling caved in while you all were signing magazine covers. Nice job."

Standing up on the lip of the platform, from right to left, stood both my sisters and parents in full color-coded combat gear. The twins were sporting newly redesigned, slightly smaller but sleeker helmets with sweeping black visors where their eyes would be and color-anodized metal wrapped around their entire skull structures. With a trained eye I spotted a round metal seam around the mouth area where the com-system had been installed the day before. The seams weren't supposed to be there, but the helmets been put into use before they could be buffed out and refinished. Both the green and red swathed sister were standing with their completely covered heads hanging off to one side, their tiny shoulder slack as both visors stared down off the platform at where I was standing, trying to peer around my tilted hat bill that only left my left eye uncovered.

If they were only blonde…the jokes I could make…

Standing a good…inch taller than her daughters but with considerably more shoulder and lean bulk, Helen(a) Fenton stood with her back straight and both hands folded behind it in a self-taught military fashion. The armor plating that literally encased the twins' suits was much less dominant on this higher-end navy blue model. The joints, which in the twin's case were slightly thicker with rotor-plating and shock absorbing polymers (…Bubble wrap), my mother had left her limbs somewhat lightly protected in favor of a molded torso-piece that had been unofficially tested to hold up to a handgun shell at point blank with only some damage to the paintjob.

I also understood that the technical term is 'Breastplate'. I ignored this accordingly.

For a long second, I just took a close look at my mother's face. Or really, what covered it. While she'd designed the twin helmets for maximum protection and as technology showcases…she always had more of a wild side when it came to her own gear.

That damn helmet.

A custom-anodized shade of royal blue, three layers of clear shine protector that she never tells anyone she puts on. Instead of going for the ultra-modern, ultra-protective models like the girls, her own helmet was modeled on something from the first World Wars. A rounded top dome, ending with the sides raised out and around the ears with the face cut away. Then, she'd made it so the sharp-angled visor drops down over her nose and leaves only her chin and tight lips visible under the machine-like gaze of the facemask.

Classical. Intimidating. Functional. Not exactly feminine, but this woman who gave me life also took it away from several thousand lesser animals before she put the gun down and picked up a Fenton-brand Ectorifle.

For a second that seemed more like five or six, I stared up at the distorted reflection of my disguise in the silver void where my mother's eyes should have been.

She probably thought I'd just blinked before looking off at her husband. That's the beauty of only showing one eye. You can wink at all the uptight girls you want.

And lastly, of course not least…James Daniel Fenton.

A brief glance at his outfit. Stock blue jumpsuit, decorative armor plates around the neck and arms, a blinking light on the collar to show the mike was still on…And a ruggedly handsome if not sickly pale European mug looking down at me with his mouth hanging open enough to show how his teeth were close to cracking against each other.

Both his sky-blue eyes bore down, rather reluctantly, at my single green iris. Like two lap dogs looking at a single Doberman.

Another single-eyed blink, and I swung my tucked eyes back under my cap as I spun around to shake off who ever was grabbing at my sleeve to get me away from the stage. By the time I turned my head they'd backed off and disappeared into the crowd. Tightening my eyes at the front row of the crowd, faking annoyance, I then tucked my notebook into the open flap of my jacket before calling off to my side, where my shell-shocked family would hear it.

"Thanks for the interview, Jimmy."

I gave up on that reporter voice. I told them in my natural, affluent rasp.

After that last quote for the byline, I took off walking out the side of the gallery, off down the closed street while flipping out my phone to check the time.

As I glared down at the fact my phone doesn't have an external screen for the time, a lung-burning screech nearly sent my flat on my face.

"IT'S THE GHOST WHO MADE THAT SNAKE ATTACK ME!"

Frozen in mid-shuffle, the improvised street act canceled by the on who never realized it was pretend… all I could do was hiss to myself.

"…_SMOOTH, Kerri_!"

My eyebrows jumped as my light hiss came out as an echoing chorus of that same phrase. Glancing down at my mouth and back, I simply stood up straighter and turned back to see three visibly annoyed Fentons staring down the red-suited twin with their arms at their sides and their head/helmets twitching in silent rage.

This time singing solo, I hissed.

"Crap…I _am _related to them!"

One quick reporter popped his head over the side of the line, glancing wildly between my lone figure in the middle of the street and the emotional family moment up on the RV. Sounding rather confused, he yelled up to them.

"Are…Aren't you supposed to…?"

Quickly throwing one arm into the air and the other behind my head, I tried faking that voice again.

"Whoa…Hold it!"

Darting my hand in and out of my jacket, I held up a solid green ID card in a green mock-leather wallet.

"I'm…Eric Phantoon! With the _General Timely News!"_

I saw a blur blue as Helen grabbed a holster with a practiced snap…

…Time for Plan B.

Stabbing a finger towards to the nearest rooftop and screaming.

"_There he is!"_

…It gets sadder.

They fell for it.

Every head snapped over to the roof of a closed hair salon, actually thinking that the identified culprit would be there. Every eye, camera, and helmet-scanner actually turned to look where I was pointing.

On the top of some random neon sign advertising low prices on insurance rates at 'Watchful Eye Insurance'. Trademark symbol.

…On top of the giant black rectangle, legs dangling below me as multi-colored text scrolled by, the heated LED grid scalded my ankles even through my dress pants. I simply stroked my chin and looked down at the stunned crowd with a low brow and a twitching left ear. I think I got a bug stuck in it on the phase over there.

Before they could click a shutter, I yelled down with my hand still on my chin as the other flew to my tortured eardrum.

"_You actually LOOKED? Get some real jobs, you bleary-eyed turkeys!"_

Wincing as something flew out of my ear, I kept the raised hand where it was and snapped the extended finger against my thumb.

The soft crack was echoed with an orchestra of camera clicks. The next day, every editor in town would be frowning at a 'million dollar shot' of…some neon sign.

And more importantly, as I hung in the air letting the wind pass through me like a compliment, I never took my eyes off my family as they jumped off the platform and took off toward the entrance of the bank that had been cleared by the police half an hour before.

…Three of them, anyway…I was probably the only one who saw Jim Fenton duck into the RV while his wife and daughters went off in the T-3 charging formation.

He had no plans to join them.

With a gentle nod I eyed the three armored vixens as they awkwardly jogged through the barricade with shouldered weapons a tad too heavy for them.

A bit too flashy for my tastes…but it got their attention.

Swinging my feet behind me and glancing up at a second story window on the side of the bank, my last thought before zipping off like a cheetah in an F-64…

…_I can't believe Kerri remembered that snake…_Sherri usually has to remind her when their birthday is. And I always have to remind Sherri.

Eight Minutes Later

Even through of an inch of steel-injected polymer, I could hear them whispering behind the door. I was making myself rather comfortable at the receptions desk a good eight feet in front of the bank's main doors, just a lone glass desk placed in the front and center of a darkened lobby the size of the actual building. The massive amount of glossy furniture strewn about in from the initial raid occasionally glistened whenever a siren flash went through the tinted glass walls on either side of the door.

Lazily propping my crossed legs across the invisible piece of glass trying to be a desk, I was leaning onto the back three wheels of the chair simply because the deep groves they'd left in the thick carpet had made it possible. My arms were crossed behind my head, my laced fingers tapping my neck like a keyboard to fend off boredom. I wanted to check my phone again, but I'd counted the seconds since the last time.

Exactly eight minutes, since the girls and my mom had gotten to the scene.

They've been standing outside the door, whispering so loud I could hear them through the door at my borrowed desk. I felt a yawn coming on as my mother laid out the plan for the third time.

"And after I say 'Three'…kick the door."

I bent one arm around my head to cover my yawn as a tweeting voice inquired.

"…With which foot?"

My mother hissed out a curse, so fast that it sounded like a vent coming on. I suddenly jolted up in my chair a bit, staring in partial night vision at the door as if it'd sprouted wings.

Did…she just curse in Spanish?

An identical, but somewhat clearer voice asked with a confused lilt.

"Mom, what'd you just…?"

The scream would have gotten me out of my chair if I hadn't already stood up.

"ONE-TWO-THREE!"

True to their…carefully planned word, the impact cracked the door off its hinges and fell forward with a muffled thud revealing two shadowed female figures crouched behind it.

…Before a third jumped up between them, kicked the area the door used to be, and ended up face-vaulting onto it with a strikingly similar sound effect.

A quick whimper form the crimson crusader assured the other two she was fine so they could step right over her and scan the darkened lobby. A soft whirring from their helmets confirmed that they were literally scanning. Flicking her side-arm off her belt without looking, the tallest nymph of the bunch whispered sharply through her exposed teeth.

"Now that the hardest part of entering the building is over with…let's just splat the freak and go home."

As her daughter helped peel her sister off the door, she scanned the room again, this time slower and more predatory than the procedure step they'd done in tune. Her mirrored visor settled on the empty desk greeting them, and the odd angle the chair was tipped behind it. Simply tightening her lips, she turned on both heels and silently treaded off toward the illuminated beacon of the fire-stairwell sign. When Sherri had tested Kerri's vision by holding up random amounts of fingers, and she had ball parked them all as even numbers, they spotted their commander waiting for them by the sign, tapping a high heeled boot and inspecting her rounded pistol in the dim glow of the sign. As they jogged up to her, she pushed the door open and right before slipping through it to lead the way…she assured her daughters.

"This is what we do, Girls. Easy as cake."

The door clicked closed after a few seconds of echoing footsteps on the stairwell. Back in my desk, my chair in the same odd angle she had seen it in while I'd watched them, I leaned back even farther and commented to the ceiling with a shrug.

"Times like these…I'm not that ashamed to be the freak of the family."

-

Author's Notes: More to come before midnight. It'll be fun, I can say that much.


End file.
